


Tumaqsrubaa

by Khrysoprase



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Corpse Desecration, Dissection, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Fox Culture, Hate Crimes, It's Zootopia you knew that was coming, Languages and Linguistics, Minor Original Character(s), Murderers, Mystery, Original Character Death(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Judy Hopps/OC, Past Nick Wilde/OC(s), Police, Racial Tension, Rating May Change, Really needs a better summary, References to Drugs, Religious Discussion, Serial Killer, Slow Burn, Temporarily on Hiatus due to COVID-19, Undercover as a Couple, in the context of how it applies to a case, rabbit culture, references to murder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:40:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 45,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24618490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khrysoprase/pseuds/Khrysoprase
Summary: All Judy meant to do was save Nick's life and show a criminal a tiny measure of kindness. She wasn't expecting one moment to get the perp to talk and give them leads on Zootopia's most infamous serial killer, a case gone cold a decade ago. Nick wasn't expecting a simple farm girl to have any secrets worth keeping or deeper culture worth exploring. Neither of them could have foreseen just how vital their sharing of cultures, friendship and eventual love would be in cracking the case.
Relationships: Judy Hopps/Nick Wilde
Comments: 83
Kudos: 133





	1. uqaq (speech)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure whether or not to put translations for non-Mammalian Standard (English) words in the notes or not. Let me know what you prefer as readers. Given the international audience of this fandom, though, I'm going to forego trying to provide pronunciation guides, as I doubt I could do it in a way that would make sense to everyone.
> 
> Every chapter will have additional warnings in the notes at the start as needed.
> 
> Additional tags will be added as necessary.
> 
> The title, Tumaqsrubaa, means 'to fit together'.

The first time he heard Judy speak anything other than Mammalian Standard, it saved his life.

It was a Friday night, and they were at a club on stakeout. They weren’t sitting next to each other, since that would give the game away, but they could catch each other’s eyes from time to time. Nick took point at a table by the front, playing games of _Bullshot_ with cards that were stained with the salt used to keep the sidewalks down here in Tundratown clear. Judy was at the bar proper, sitting with the other smaller mammals drawn in by the veggie cocktails. A rabbit in Tundratown not of the cold weather variety wasn’t entirely unusual. Bunnies would move to T-town if their partner is an Arctic hare or a snowshoe or whatever; so long as Judy stuck to a cover story when people asked – _if_ they asked, which they tend not to on a Friday night – she’d be fine.

Predators of all sizes and kinds would pop into these joints to gamble anywhere in the city. The ermine waitress who took Nick’s order barely spared him a glance, polite and cheerful as she gave him his drink and then darted off into the depths of the club again. He was wildly out of his biome. It was fine. No one gave a damn so long as he didn’t cause any trouble, and while Nick could hustle any of these fine upstanding gentlemen out of their life savings, he wasn’t here for that. Nick was here to watch for their mark from the front, where he could see any mammal on the dance floor with relative ease.

Judy had a clear view of the backdoor, and he saw her ears curl before she even turned to him. When she wanted to perk them up but had to haul the instinct in so as not to blow her cover, they curved into long scythe shapes as she fought off her own animal instincts. Her violet eyes caught his and flickered back and forth to the target and him for a second before she resumed nursing her drink. The motions gave her cover to tilt her head, really size up the perp. He was a dark sepia-colored wolverine with a distinctive silvery pattern of fur on his face, not uncommon among wolverines but more pronounced under the club’s neon lighting. He’d removed his coat before he’d gotten into the club, tied it around his waist like he was too warm. It almost looked casual.

Unfortunately for him, it didn’t entirely hide the bloodstains. Nick saw Judy slip off her stool to wander over to a waitress, under the guise of asking when more room would open up at one of the gambling tables, so she could try to ID the perp up close.

“It’s him. It’s Rust.” She spoke into the mic on her vest quickly, covertly. “He’s got a van outside. Stay there in case he ducks out through the front.”

Academy training covered this. Sometimes perpetrators would go out via the front door, sometimes even when obviously in the wrong. ‘Refuge In Audacity’, one of Nick’s instructors had called it. And to their credit, it often worked; cops didn’t assume someone walking calmly out of the front doors with cameras on them was a criminal, because what criminal would leave such an obvious evidence trail of witnesses? The answer, Nick knew from his own hustles, was someone who would be long gone soon enough.

He also knew from his own hustles that the wolverine he was looking at wasn’t someone who had a plan. There’s a way a mammal carries himself when he’s not afraid to die that Nick recognized, and he was up and making excuses to his fellow card players before he could really think that decision through. Ditching the guys at the table took all of twenty seconds, but in those seconds Judy and the wolverine vanished without a trace.

“Oh for the love of Saint Marian,” Nick muttered, weaving through the crowd after them. His words were drowned out by the music, a swelling sea of noisy dance music that made it impossible to hear anything Judy might be saying over the radio. “Carrots, would it kill you to ping me before you do something stupid?”

She couldn’t hear him, but frankly, it wouldn’t have mattered if she had. _Dumb bunny._

The door to the alley groaned and creaked as he forces it open, eyes reflexively squinting against the glare of light on snow. Though he had night vision, Tundratown always messed it up at night. Too many high contrast areas, bright lights and snow meshed with pitch black recesses. Blinking, he followed the pawprints on the ground around the corner and up half a block, heart pounding. He still couldn’t hear anything from Judy’s radio comm.

A gunshot pierced the night, loud as thunder. Nick broke into a run.

He caught a flicker of movement low to the ground, a streak of grey against the white snow, diving full force into the shadows of a drainage ditch. _Judy!_ She skidded to a stop on the ice with surprising precision, on all four feet, latching onto the metal drain grate to keep herself from sliding further. Nick realized a second too late he’d overfocused on where she was instead of on where their perp was, and turned to find himself cornered.

It took Judy a second to fumble for her gun and in that second Rust had drawn his own and fired at Nick. The fox gracelessly threw himself behind a nearby dumpster for cover, fur standing up when he heard a gunshot hit the metal, sees the bullet hit the wall behind him with less than an inch to spare.

Rust reloaded. Judy stood upright, eyes flickering to Nick and then to Rust and then to Nick again. The vivid violet was the only warm color in a cold world.

“Qasrurlugu!” Her voice echoed in the alley. Rust froze in the middle of reloading, brow furrowing. “Qasrurlugu, pisikkaanngit!”

Nick had no idea what she just said, but he could guess. That tone was universal, transcended languages to convey a desperate plea by virtue of how she said it. He couldn’t see Rust from where he was huddled, could barely see Judy, and for a moment everything was entirely too quiet. Only the faint notes from the club and the ragged sound of Judy and Rust’s breathing filled his ears.

“Uqaqtulugu, Hopps.” Rust’s voice was going for nonchalance and failing. She had shaken him, if only enough to get him to stop. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming into my home and speaking my language like you’ve got a right to it.”

“Uqaqtuquvich?” He recognized the tone Judy’s using from the times she’s negotiated with suspects before, for matters ranging from traffic violations to asking Bellwether how she got to them so quickly. She made a gesture with her paw behind her back, a quick flicker she’d used to signal him before. _Get ready_. “Qiviqqungaqu-”

Nick didn’t wait for Judy to finish speaking. His shaking paws pulled his stun gun from his belt in motions drilled into him by the academy. The fox whipped around the side of the dumpster and fired before he could overthink his shot. His aim was perfect. The prongs hit the wolverine in the dead center of the chest, just above the heart. Rust went down in a flurry of motion. Judy was on him in an instant, clicking handcuffs around his wrists while reciting him his rights like something out of a procedural style TV show. She was always better than anyone Nick had ever known at following the rules to the letter when it comes to treating suspects fairly.

To anyone else, she might have looked unshaken. She almost managed to fool Nick, shooting him a genuine smile. “Nice save, Slick.”

“I try.” He smiled back, but caught the way her left foot began to stomp the ground nervously before she could stop herself. His smile turned less smarmy and more genuine. “You okay, Carrots?”

“…yeah.” She inhaled a long breath, exhaled it slowly. “Yeah. I just – I don’t know what my plan would’ve been if that hadn’t worked.”

 _I almost lost you_ , she said with her eyes rather than her words. Nick wished he were better at people, better at emotions, so he could tell her he was fine and everything was okay in a way she’d believe.

“Eh, you’re a good actress. You could’ve faked your own death.” He grinned at her, his usual too-big smile, and she huffed out a brief laugh in disbelief.

“Only you would run around joking at the scene of a shootout, Nick.”

“You love me and you know it.” He tried not to look too pleased when she had to turn away to hide an inappropriately wide smile. The best part of the job was this, these little moments of joy stolen away from crime scenes.

Nick took point on holding onto a handcuffed Rust. _What a garbage nickname,_ Nick thought. _Aren’t gangster names supposed to make you sound more tough, not less?_ He watched the wolverine’s breathing, worried despite himself that the other predator might be injured by the stun gun. _The paperwork from medical complications is exhausting. **That’s** what I’m concerned about._ With his worries justified to himself, he risked looking at Judy again, who stood quietly by Rust’s other side, face backlit by the one functioning streetlight in the alley, eyes almost indigo in the night. Her expression was more serious than he’d have liked it to be.

“Hopps,” Rust muttered, instantly getting the attention of both officers. “Ukpiqtuaqit?”

Judy stared at him, caught off-guard by the question. Their eyes met, and Nick couldn’t begin to guess at what was being said between them, if anything, or what was going through her mind as her brow furrowed, earnestly considering the question. “I don’t know.” Her voice was quiet, somber.

“Fair enough.” Rust shrugged, not looking at either of them, now. “Guess it wasn’t my place to ask, anyway.”

“There’s no law against talking to cops about matters not related to crime,” she shrugged in return, ears perking up at the sound of distant sirens drawing nearer. “I can talk to the Chief about getting special accommodations made for you if you want to invoke your legal right to them.”

He laughed, which rapidly became coughing inbetween the cold and his labored breathing from the stun gun’s impact. “Yeah, no. Anyone can be anything but if I ask for special treatment from the cops I’ll kiss my rep goodbye.”

Judy sighed, but didn’t press the point any further, too tired to keep up the argument now that some of the adrenaline was fading. Nick tried not to sigh in return. There was an entire layer to tonight that he wasn’t getting and it was driving him crazy. He hated not knowing what was going on. He was good at reading body language, not figuring out a language he couldn’t even identify. He was completely bad at reading Judy, though, so in a way this was par for the course. She never did like conforming to his expectations.

And much as he hated having to wait until they’d booked their perp to ask her questions, he couldn’t fight back a wave of fondness for her ability to miraculously salvage yet another unsalvageable case.

He loved her, and he knew it.


	2. igrubaa (rigor mortis)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW/CW: discussion of murder, mutilation of a corpse, implied prior murders.

Judy was surprised she managed to drive the car back to the station alright.

Sometimes when the adrenaline started to wear off, her paws would get shaky. In the wake of almost being shot, she’d expected to get that unsteady feeling that so often came after her moments of bravery. She didn’t. That wasn’t always a good thing. Rust had a look on his face as they loaded him into the car once Officer Malitsoh brought it around that told Judy she’d hit a nerve. She hoped it was in a good way. Judy wasn’t in the business of messing with perps psychologically. That wasn’t who she was.

Malitsoh sat in the back to monitor and treat the stun gun wound as well as the cut on Rust’s stomach. With his condition assessed as non-critical, they were clear to drive him back to the station, a route that was more crowded than Judy would’ve liked. Six months into working here, traffic still irritated her. It never got like this out in the countryside. With an ear rotated towards the back of the car and her paws at ten and two, though, she navigated it well enough, and used the excuse of keeping her eyes on the road to avoid looking at Nick too much.

She was alright talking with him about this, probably. Maybe. She wasn’t sure, she hadn’t thought it through quite that far. Judy had prioritized saving his life over everything else. That was equal parts training and friendship, coming together to make the decision for her. But although she’d never regret taking actions that saved her partner, she didn’t want to have the follow-up conversation with another officer and a random criminal listening in.

“Officer Hopps?” Rust asked from the back, breaking the silence. He paused when the fox and wolf in the car both looked at him, then pressed on as if they weren’t there. “Did you mean it, about getting me special accommodations? Even if I don’t talk?”

Judy didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Your legal rights are yours whether or not you cooperate with law enforcement.” She was vaguely offended he’d imply otherwise.

Rust went quiet for a few moments, resting his head against the window and watching the cold of Tundratown give way to the tunnels that would take them back to the ZPD’s headquarters. Tundratown on a Friday night got crowded enough that booking had to be done the next precinct over, especially lately. Judy wondered if he knew more than he let on about the crime boom here in the past three months. The wolverine didn’t have a particularly long record, just an abnormally violent one. She wasn’t good enough at putting those pieces together yet to figure out if that meant he was a possible lead on this.

It didn’t matter. If he wanted a new moon night off then she’d get that for him. She was a mammal of her word, determined to be a good cop even if it probably wouldn’t win her any favors with Bogo. _Well, to be fair, nothing really gets anyone into the Chief’s good graces. I’m not sure he has those._ Judy bit back a sigh as traffic once again ground to, well, not quite a halt, but an obnoxious snail’s pace. _I hope whatever adrenaline I had going earlier keeps me awake the whole way back. Anyone can be anything in Zootopia – except for a good driver._

She grabbed the radio and called in to the station. “This is Officer Hopps. Come in, dispatch.”

“I’m here!” Clawhauser’s voice was cheerful as ever, despite the lateness of the hour. “Dispatch reporting.”

“Can I get the sign off form for a solo cell and a delayed questioning? Should be filed under the EREA section.” She heard more than saw Rust shift in the backseat behind her, the old worn material of the cruiser’s backseats creaking slightly.

“Uh, hold on a sec.” She heard the shifting of papers and opening of drawers. “EREA… EREA… ah-ha! Here it is. I’ll have it in a folder for you on your desk when you get here. Just sign off on it and I’ll have Briar from filing pick it up when she grabs Nick’s backlog.”

Nick frowned, even if Clawhauser couldn’t see it. His inability to get his paperwork done on time was so chronic that at this point Clawhauser was _counting on it_. That it was completely warranted didn’t make it less insulting.

“Thanks, Clawhauser. Hopps out.” She cut the signal, giggling at Nick’s expression. “Don’t give me that look. You know he’s right.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He waved a paw dismissively. “I was going to get to it earlier until Bogo put us on this long haul of a nightshift. It’s not my fault I prioritized real work over paperwork, Carrots.”

She rolled her eyes fondly. Behind them, Rust cleared his throat, causing her ears to twist towards him instinctively.

“I’ll talk. In the morning, I mean,” he clarified solemnly. “You got me, Hopps. I wasn’t expecting you to actually call it in. If the other cops actually play fair, I’ll tell you what I know.”

“That wasn’t why I did it,” Judy said immediately, mildly horrified at the idea he might think he’d been hustling her. Rust nodded.

“Yeah. I know. You’re decent. That’s why I’m doing this.”

“…thank you. You have the right to an attorney present during any and all questioning by police. If you have an attorney you want present, I can put in the request tonight and have them show up in the morning.” She saw, out of the corner of her eye, Nick giving her an ‘are you kidding me’ look. Obviously someone hanging out in a gambling den in Tundratown didn’t have the cash for a personal attorney, but it was procedure and she also didn’t want to assume anything based on where the wolverine was from.

Rust appreciated it, going off of the tired but genuine smile he shot her way. “Ieugiksuqtutit.”

She looked at the road as traffic finally picked up once they turned off the freeway, unsure what to feel or say in response. Being praised by a criminal shouldn’t have had much meaning. So why was it so hard to fight off a smile, a sense of pride at having done the right thing? Judy shrugged, not wanting to sound too proud. This wasn’t a hustle. This was just who she wanted to be.

“I try, Rust. I try.”

* * *

The greatest part of getting to wait until morning to do questioning was, without a doubt, getting to actually grab a bite to eat and a few hours of sleep.

Judy not being nocturnal meant these nightshifts were harder on her than on him. Nick was able to work off of naps and snatched moments of rest after the life he’d lived. She was still adjusting. To her credit, though, she waited until Rust was put away to slouch down against the wall. They both knew the value of not letting perps, no matter how cooperative, see the toll taken on them by the job. And after one too many well-meaning offers of donuts and candy by Clawhauser, they’d also learned to get a decent bite to eat. Sugar crashes on top of a long shift wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good time.

As with many a night before, they found their way down to the favored restaurant of all cops in ZPD’s central precinct: Pastabilities. A 24-hour food place in the heart of town, it offered all kinds of pasta, bread and salad, and after a long night the hearty food was welcome. That it was a two block walk from there to the bus stop to get back home for Judy was a nice bonus, too.

Nick held his tongue while they were at the station – too many coworkers there, not to mention the less savory types who didn’t need to know any of their business – but the second they got settled at their customary booth in the corner, he fixed his eyes on his partner. Still in their uniforms, she cut an interesting figure, not intimidating and nothing to ignore, either. He waited until they’d ordered and gotten their water to so much as clear his throat, picking his words carefully. This friendship was still one they were learning to navigate sometimes. Judy didn’t pry into his past often. When she did, it was with utmost care and concern in her large rabbit eyes. He wanted to be just as careful about how he approached her life, too.

“Didn’t know you spoke anything besides Standard,” he said neutrally, wrapping a paw around his glass simply to have something to do with his arms. “Sly bunny.”

She smiled tiredly at him. “My grandma taught me. Bunnyburrow isn’t all hicks playing banjos and drinking fermented cranberries, you know.”

“Do they ferment blueberries, too? Ow!” Nick winced as she playfully kicked at him under the table. Rabbit legs had surprising reach. “Okay, fine, I had that coming.” He watched her take a long drink from her cup before saying, nonchalantly, “You know, call me ignorant, but I have no idea what that even was.”

“You’re not ignorant. You just don’t work Tundratown very often. Neither of us do.” Her nose wiggled as she studied the ice cubes in her glass, then finally met his gaze. “It’s Uqallakpiikka. I don’t know what it’s called in Standard, but it’s what a lot of northern species speak. Or spoke, I guess; I’ve heard it’s not as common outside the countryside.”

He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Last I checked, Bunnyburrow is _south_ of us.”

“Doesn’t mean my family is from the south,” she pointed out gently, ears tensing slightly. “My mother’s side is from a few boroughs north, she just moved once she met my dad. Eventually a lot of her side of the family did, too – housing isn’t too expensive there, and they saved a lot on heating bills living somewhere more temperate.”

Nick wasn’t stupid. He could tell he wasn’t getting the whole story from her. His partner wasn’t the best liar in the business, after all; she had more tells than she was probably aware of, and had she been anyone else he might have tried to hustle the information out of her. The thing that stopped him was that she wouldn’t do the same to him. When he didn’t want to talk about something, she’d always had the good grace to let it drop. Given how often he knew criminal’s names, favored locations or resell spots in the city, she’d had plenty of opportunities to pry. Instead she’d waited for him to volunteer information.

So out of respect, he dropped that line of questioning entirely. “Good on you for invoking the EREA for Rust. I think he really appreciated that.”

“Well,” she sighed, ears visibly losing their tension as she slumped back against the booth seat, “it’s his right. Just because someone’s a criminal doesn’t mean their civil rights go away.”

“Fair enough.” He couldn’t help the warm feeling that settled in over him as he watched her yawn and stretch. Only Judy would try this hard to be courteous to someone who’d shot at both of them. “I wouldn’t have thought Tundratown gangsters to be a particularly religious subset of the population.”

“They probably aren’t, as a group, but individual people are exceptions. I mean, look at Finnick.”

Nick inclined his head, conceding the point. The smaller fox had given Nick a saint’s medal for graduation, then stunned Judy by giving her a matching one. Saint Atanasije, patron saint of change, refugees and former criminals. He’d laughed, told Finnick to screw off, and then let Judy haul them both in for a brief group hug. Nick had half-joked about throwing it in a sock drawer. In actuality, it’d gone on a string beside the medal his mom had given him of Saint Ruzha, worn more often than not under his clothes. Most of Nick’s friends from before he’d gone into the police academy wouldn’t talk to him these days, but Finn was different. How much of that was a result of his complicated relationship with his faith and how much was simply him being a decent person, Nick didn’t know.

“I don’t think Finnick would take any accommodations, no matter what you offered. He’s got a real berserk button about being offered special treatment. A lot of small predators hate being treated like they’re special.”

“I’d have made the same offer if it was Rust or Finnick or Malitsoh or you.”

“I know you would,” he held up a paw to pacify her, “but you’d be surprised how unevenly applied that particular law is. How much sympathy the cops have for you varies, and that extends to how much respect they have for certain rights.” A pang of guilt went through him at the way her ears drooped. “Hey. _Hey_. I know you. You’re better than that, and if the status quo can change enough to have a fox and a bunny on the force, who’s to say this can’t get better?”

She perked up slightly at that, and more so when their food arrived. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Nick. It’s weird when you’re the optimistic one, but you’re kind of good at it.”

“Ugh, how dare you. Dinner’s on you, Carrots.” They shared a grin, briefly, before turning to their food, eating in companionable silence.

Zootopia was a crazy city to work in, but Nick couldn’t imagine anyone he’d want to work beside more.

* * *

Morning came and found them both rested, showered, fed and ready to go.

Rust, real name Russell Qajiq, was waiting in the interrogation room. His old clothes had been confiscated for evidence, so he’d been provided with a clean white t-shirt and plain beige drawstring pants. He’d had a chance to comb his fur into laying flat and the effect made him look younger, less like a criminal and more like what he was, a teenager in over his head. At nineteen, he was a little younger than most of Tundratown’s criminal element. Judy made a note of that mentally. It was interesting, a possible thing to dig into, but she’d treat him as the adult he was and with all due respect that entailed.

Judy took a seat across from him at the table, with Nick beside her. He was good at spotting holes in her questioning and knowing when to ask his own. The same applied in reverse. That wasn’t to say that their coworkers weren’t listening in on the other side of the one-way mirror, of course. The more ears the better, to say nothing of the obvious security benefits of having an extra officer or two ready to come to their aid should a violent offender slip their restraints.

Rust qualified as a violent offender, with a history of assault, bar fights and stupid decisions. He didn’t seem to mind his paws being handcuffed in front of him or his ankle being shackled to his chair. He knew his own record. Some of the respect from last night was still in his eyes when he looked at Judy.

“Pablan,” he greeted the rabbit with a nod.

“Pablan,” she returned evenly. “Before we start, please know everything you’re saying is being recorded. It’s preferred that you stick to Mammalian Standard as much as possible, since that’s the language of majority for the ZPD.”

“I can do that.” He glanced at Nick curiously, perhaps wondering what languages he did or didn’t know, before turning to Judy again. “Ask away, Officer.”

“What were you doing at the club last night?”

“Getting paid for roughing up a guy.” That was a blunter answer than she’d been expecting, in a good way.

“When you say roughed up, could you clarify what that means?” she asked.

Rust sighed. “I punched him six times, threw him on the ground and told him not to go looking too deep into things.”

“Can you identify who you’re referring to when you say ‘him’? The man you beat up?”

He shook his head, expression a portrait of myriad emotions. “It’d be putting him in danger if I did. I may have hit him, but I don’t want one leak leading to another leading to him getting shot. That’s not what I was paid for and it’s not what I was hired for.”

Judy bit the tip of her carrot pen, lightly, the gears in her head turning. “Your employer is a criminal, and I assume the man you were hired to assault was looking into him. Is that correct?” The wolverine nodded. “Can you give me the name of your employer?”

“Ukpiktunngitjutit,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.

“I’ll believe you,” she assured him. The translation implied was for Nick’s benefit. “We have no reason to think you’re lying to us.”

Rust looked unconvinced. Nick took this as his cue to step in.

“You’re not pulling a fast one on us and we know it. Right now, we have no leads on who’s responsible for the crime wave in Tundratown, so you wouldn’t be viewed as covering for anyone by giving us a name we’re not looking into. We’re not here to screw you over for helping us out, Rusty.” The wolverine bit his lower lip, looking away, but Nick caught the flicker of conflicting emotion on his face. _Got ‘em._ “We can give you lessened charges for cooperation.”

That seemed to loosen his tongue. “It’ll put me in danger if anyone finds out I was the leak.”

“The ZPD’s made seventeen arrests in Tundratown in the past two weeks,” Judy pointed out, leaning over the table slightly to get his undivided attention. She was too earnest to be faked. “No one would be able to pin anything on any of you due to sheer volume. You can tell your employer we didn’t lessen your charges, we botched evidence logging and procedure and couldn’t hit you with the full ones.”

Nick smiled internally. Judy was getting good at finding ways to work the system to the advantage of herself and others without ever doing anything morally reprehensible. She wouldn’t hesitate to help keep younger offenders from serving time, but she’d never compromise her vow to serve and protect in the process.

“…alright. I’ll spill, but not ‘cause I think I’ll be able to totally duck the backlash. I don’t like what’s going down in Tundratown. There’s things in the works I don’t wanna see, storms on the horizon. I’m not a saint, but I’m no _qiviq_.”

“I know you’re not,” Judy said firmly, and he believed that she meant it.

“Ever heard of the Torture Technician, officers?” Rust saw Nick go totally still and knew at least one of them had. “He never really went away, or if he did, it wasn’t to some far-flung territory outside city limits like people said. He’s still here. He’s in Tundratown. And he’s snuffing out every last little lead that might get him put away, and being careful enough to contract things out through middlemen.”

Nick swallowed. “These are very serious accusations, Rust. How do you know it’s him? That trail went cold a long time ago.”

“…I’ve heard things. I’ve seen things. But the piece I can hand over to you that’ll get through loud and clear is the death of Mara Thompson. She was in the same graduating year as me. Wanted to be an investigative reporter, help the world see the things we didn’t wanna see. I think she figured doing that would make people care – as if the reason prey don’t care about preds is a lack of knowing what we’ve been through.”

 _It is, sometimes,_ Judy thought, but didn’t say. “I think I heard about that case. Malitsoh works Tundratown a lot, but he indicated it was a runaway situation?” Her tone said she was asking for Rust’s take, not telling him he was wrong.

“Mara didn’t run away. She tailed me and figured out who my employer is and tried looking further from there. Her body’s in a drainpipe by Fir Road and Granite Street. It’s the Technician’s work.” He swallowed back a wave of revulsion, barely resisting the urge to throw up at the memory.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Judy said softly, thinking of the friends she’d gone to high school with and how she’d feel in that situation, “but, Rust… why didn’t you call it in?”

He huddled down in his chair, young, small and lost. “Didn’t want to risk my boss’s life, or mine, or anyone else's. You weren’t here back when he was at his peak, Hopps. You don’t know how bad it got. If even half of what people say he did was him, then I couldn’t take the risk.”

Nick and Judy shared a look before Judy stood up. “Per protocol, we’re going to have to have you sign a statement about a sighting of a possible body. It won’t ever leave this station and only one mammal in filing will see it. We’re going to keep you safe, Rust, and we’re going to get justice for Mara.”

The wolverine nodded silently. At the girl’s name, his eyes grew shiny and wet. Judy respectfully averted her gaze as she and Nick left, Nick still silent as the grave.

She made it halfway back to their desks before she had to ask.

“Who’s the Torture Technician?”

* * *

Chief Bogo stared at the photos in front of him with a critical eye.

He’d done some work in forensics in college, taken some courses before deciding regular police work played to his strengths better. He wasn’t entirely qualified to assess the pictures Officer Schuyler had sent him. Given she and her partner were on patrol in Tundratown, he’d had them investigate the reported body in question rather than Hopps or Wilde. With murder, every second counted. So he’d delegated asking Rust for details on the last known sighting of Mara Thompson in the meantime, to compare to the other witness statements they’d gotten when her parents first filed a missing person’s report twenty-two days ago.

The precision with which the body had been taken apart was eerie, surgical, almost impossibly neat. Whoever committed this murder had surgical grade tools, or the next best thing. Going off of the discoloration, he was willing to bet money on her having been not only dead but partially frozen before the worst of the mutilation began. Bogo was grateful for that much, small comfort though it was. He prided himself on not being a soft man, but now that he had nieces of his own, he couldn’t help imagining how her parents would feel when he delivered the news.

That was a phone call he’d make himself. He tried to make sure he did that for as many cases as he could, to give people the impression that their loved ones mattered and these cases were being taken seriously. Back during the original reign of the Technician, when the city was running scared and losing faith in the police, he’d done the same thing. Back then he was barely out of the academy himself. It was a rough thing to walk into, all that chaos and suffering, and rougher still to walk out of it with no answers.

Hopps had done exceptional things before, but this took the cake. Getting a lead into a case gone this cold was extraordinary, if it turned out to be the genuine article and not a copycat killer. He hoped it was a copycat – those inevitably got sloppy and got caught. This wasn’t someone he wanted out there on his streets for any longer than he could help.

Incisions at all the joints, circles of skin cut out, a particular fascination with breaking the bones in the paws, no sign of sexual abuse; it all pointed to a return he’d spent a long time dreading. Some of the less that straight lines indicated a struggle, though ultimately she’d been overwhelmed. There was some bruising around the neck, though ultimately it was a combination of blood loss and hypothermia that killed her. How long had she laid there in that drain pipe, bleeding out, left to succumb to the deathly chill of a Tundratown night?

He didn’t think of it in terms of sympathy. That was a surefire way to go insane. Bogo thought of what it said about the killer: that they were methodical enough to make patterns of incisions and remove circles of skin and fur, strong enough to subdue a wolverine, had the tools on hand to mutilate a body, was intelligent enough to have picked a spot to stow the body no one would find even after a missing person’s report was filed, and careful enough to avoid security cameras.

This went beyond premeditated murder into the realm of exhaustively preplanned murder. This was not the kind of murder a mammal committed when he wanted to silence someone. A bullet could have done that job. The brutality was a warning. It said to people like Rust, _breathe a word of this and someone you know will die_. To other possible people like Mara it said _don’t look into me or you will die slowly and painfully._

He’d have to wait for the full report from forensics before he could draw any professional conclusions, but he knew, had known for a long time, that this was inevitable. Murderers didn’t simply stop murdering and go back to a normal civilian life. Eventually they always resurfaced.

Whether anyone would have known if Hopps hadn’t gotten the lead out of Rust was another question. Another five days and the flushing of Tundratown’s pipes would have begun, funneling in massive waves of water from the Marshlands in order to circulate and clean the latter district of bacteria. The currents would have carried Mara’s body out to sea or at the very least deep into the sewer system, leaving Tundratown’s gangs with the warning but nothing to hand over to the cops even if they’d wanted to. The level of forethought into location set Bogo’s teeth on edge.

The ZPD had failed to catch the Technician once before. They’d spent ten years rebuilding public trust and undoing the damage he’d wrought. It had taken a lot of arrests, a heavy focus on combating violent crime and building a separate police station in Tundratown in order to get the population to believe in the ZPD again. Nowadays they weren’t the understaffed, underfunded force they’d been back then. Now, they had some of the best officers on the continent working here.

It would have to be enough, and it would be. He had faith in his officers, both seasoned and rookies. They were stronger than ever, equipped with better technology, better cops and better numbers. They could do this.

He just hoped that this time around, he wouldn’t lose any of them in the line of duty.


	3. alappa (cold)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, future updates will not have these giant spaces between them. I've just... I've had a lot on my plate lately, to prevent a TL;DR block of text, and I apologize for the delay. Thank you for reading.

Judy sat at her desk, clicking through some of the ZPD files on this particular serial killer.

Nick hadn’t wanted to answer her in the hall. He didn’t think the risk of people overhearing and getting gossip going was worth it. That in and of itself filled her with dread. That was a level of caution the fox rarely engaged in, but also one of the reasons she was glad he was her partner: he knew without having to be told what a PR nightmare it would be if the rest of the precinct and then the city found out about the possible return of a serial killer. All it would take was one credible leak and things would devolve into chaos.

Smart fox, she thought, unaware of how her ears drooped further and further with every click through the ZPD’s files.

“He was active for five years,” Nick started, fiddling with his pen, unwilling rather than unable to look up the same files on his own computer. “Long before the cops got wind of him, those of us in the poorer neighborhoods had some idea he was out there prowling poor neighborhoods in the central district. The crushed paws and fascination with ears clued us all in that this was one guy’s work. My mom lived in fear I was going to go out one day and never come home, especially once it became clear the cops were clueless.” He smiled a small, sad smile. “She was actually happy when I started hanging out with Finnick. She thought there was safety in numbers. Guess she was right – never did hear about two mammals going missing at the same time, after all.”

“Then I’m glad you had Finnick, too,” Judy said, mulling that over in her mind. The idea of how easy it would be for a fox to go missing without anyone noticing churned her stomach. _If a bunny went missing, our families are big enough people would have to notice. Is that why all the victims are predators? Because they have small families?_ She couldn’t look at the pictures of past victims for more than a few seconds each without risking throwing up entirely. Judy had never been good with gore. “I can’t believe anyone could do something like this without a reason.”

“Well, there probably _is_ a reason, Carrots. We just don’t know it yet.” He shrugged, slumping back in his chair. His computer beeped to alert him of the preliminary forensics report, which had more detailed analysis he really didn’t want to know. He crinkled up his nose. “At least this time we have a little bit of a motive. That didn’t apply for most of the older cases.”

“I doubt that will be much comfort to Mara Thompson’s parents.” She forced herself to look at the pictures forensics had sent over along with their initial thoughts on the cause of death and possible size of the perpetrator. “I hope she wasn’t alive for most of this.”

“Yeah. I wonder if Rust needed a night just to work up the courage to tell us, after seeing that – I don’t think there’s a mammal out there who wouldn’t be shaken after seeing that.” He glanced over at her when she shook her head in response, expression thoughtful. “What?”

Judy’s eyes never left the pictures in front of her. “The new moon is when northern mammals believe you can talk to the dead.”

“What, Rust thinks Mara told him to go to us?”

“The dead don’t talk _back_ ,” she said, exasperated, looking at him like he should know better. Nick found it oddly charming how Judy assumed he was smarter than he was – that was the opposite problem of what he usually had to deal with. “It’s when you can talk to them and know they hear you. Last night… try to see it from his perspective. Try to imagine it’s Finnick in these pictures. You have a night alone, to tell him you’re sorry, or tell him what you didn’t get to say when he was alive. Then, the next morning…”

“I’d talk to the cops, yeah.” He nodded. “Canines don’t really – well, it’s complicated, but even if we don’t have the same kind of night, I get it.” Nick paused as it hit him: “This was first new moon since Mara went missing. The first night he had to really sit with this.”

 _To sit with **her** , in his own mind,_ Nick thought, though the mental image was hard to wrap his head around. He had barely been able to force himself through the memorial service for his father. Talking _about_ the dead was hard enough. He still didn’t discuss his dad with anyone, not even Finnick or his mother. Talking _to_ the dead wasn’t something he wanted to think about, let alone partake in. But if he were in Rust’s shoes, if it was Finnick in that drain pipe, he might rethink that position. If he were put in a solo cell instead of in a church building with all those eyes on him, on a night he actually thought his words might be heard… well. He could only imagine he’d come out the other side of that a very different person, one who would talk to the cops, if the cops weren’t dirty, if it seemed like there was a chance at justice.

“Rust said he thinks there’s more of this coming,” Judy mused, looking over the forensics’ team’s list of possible suspects. Size was guessed to be smaller than a bear, larger than a wolverine. Claws were guessed to either be blunted or small. Bruising around the neck had patterns befitting paws, not hooves. “Cheese and crackers, could they be any vaguer in this?” Annoyed, she set the file aside and turned to her partner. “What did people living in the city at the time think? Did anyone ever have a sighting of him, a guess at his species that maybe didn’t end up in police reports?”

“What, you trust the word of some predators from Central over the records kept by Zootopia’s finest?” He smirked at her expression, an unspoken yes, and continued, “I was hustling when the guy was working the streets in his own way. I heard a lot of rumors, Judy, and a lot of them were pretty taxonomist. But if you set aside the bias and look at them, some things did stick out: long legs, had a long tail, might’ve been a canine or a feline.”

Her foot thumped repeatedly in frustration before she reigned it in. “That’s _it_?”

“I know. Doesn’t narrow it down much, does it? No wonder the ZPD didn’t make much headway with this – you can’t look into leads you don’t have.” He took the file from her hands, sucking in a sharp breath at what he saw. “It makes me feel old to say it, but… poor kid. She didn’t deserve this.”

“I have sisters her age,” Judy said softly. She wasn’t sure why that made this worse, but it did. She could picture them in Mara’s place, and the thought turned her stomach. It also made her want to track this mammal down and tackle him to the ground, or kick him in the face.

“That’s why we have to stop him. Making the world a better place starts with getting people like this off the streets. And if we manage to do that,” he said firmly enough for her to look up at him, “it will because of the lead you got us. You’re a good cop, Carrots.”

He knew that she needed to hear it. Homicide rates were so low in Zootopia that they hadn’t encountered this kind of thing before while on the job. There wasn’t really a ‘good’ homicide case to cut one’s teeth on, but this would’ve been the last case he’d ever have wanted Judy to have to work on. Despite that, though, despite all the thoughts she was probably having about _how am I supposed to solve this when no one else could_ and _we’re already too late to save Mara_ and a dozen other things, he believed what he said. He believed in Judy Hopps. She’d never let something being impossible stop her before.

Her ears perked up, and when she smiled at him, he knew he’d said the right thing. “Thanks, Nick. Next time we’re at Pastabilities, it’s on me.”

“Isn’t it always?” he asked, and chuckled when she punched him in the shoulder lightly.

* * *

Bogo called them in the next day, during the middle of their shift.

He was never in a good mood, but right now his glare alone could have leveled mountains. Judy filed in with some apprehension. She’d expected Bogo to pull them off this case before it was even officially opened. She and Nick weren’t seasoned homicide officers. They were relatively new, with strengths that didn’t play to this case.

Or so she thought.

“Officer Malitsoh says you speak Uqallakan.” He wasn’t asking Judy if it was true, he was informing her she’d answer. “I was informed your knowledge of northern traditions was also critical in getting Rust to crack.”

“If that’s what Uqallakpiika is called in Standard, then yes, sir.” She didn’t volunteer any additional information.

He looked singularly unimpressed. “What dialect do you speak, Hopps? What level of fluency?”

“I don’t know what the government has classified as dialects, sir. I have some ancestors from Avva Mamaixaq, though, if that helps clarify things – but I can understand news broadcasts from Suluun, so I should be able to take witness statements in that, too.”

“If you’re lying to me about your linguistic capabilities, you’re fired.” Bogo said it matter-of-factly, and Judy took it in stride. He was simply following protocol. “That said, I trust Malitsoh to have heard what he said he heard, and I listened to a recording of your interview with the suspect. So, on that basis, I’m keeping you assigned to the Tundratown homicide investigation. Being able to communicate with the locals may help us get more information on what happened.”

She nodded solemnly. “Thank you, sir. I understand how important this is.”

“Do you?” he half-asked, half-mused, mulling that over in his mind and giving her no chance to answer. “Wilde, you’re going with Hopps. No else in this precinct has the patience to deal with your botched paperwork, for one thing, and for another, you seem to turn into a decent cop when she’s around.”

“Noted.”

“Both of you are going to report to Commissioner Blakesley while you’re down there. You will go to him with everything pertaining to his district, you will respect Tundratown police, and you will take his orders seriously.” The Cape buffalo watched them closely for any sign of disagreement. “You will _not_ breathe a word of this to anyone in the media. You will _not_ mention this possibly being a cold case going hot again, and you will _not_ say the name of the serial killer that Forensics thinks this matches. I don’t want to alarm the public or mislead them and I am not above assigning both of you parking duty in Sahara Square for the next month if you disregard my instructions. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir.” Judy glanced over at Nick, who bit back a sarcastic remark and nodded.

“Sure thing, Chief.”

“Excellent. Then you’re to report to Blakesley’s office at seven AM tomorrow, in uniform. Any questions?”

It was a rhetorical question, but Judy shook her head anyway. Always best to play it safe with the Chief.

“Good. Now get out of my office.”

They did so, gladly. Clawhauser had mentioned to them that Bogo had a meeting on the docket with some representatives from city hall, some budget negotiation thing that was sure to leave him in a bad mood. Neither Judy nor Nick wanted to be anywhere near him knowing that; when stressed, Bogo’s tongue turned from harsh to sharp enough to kill, and frankly not having to be in the same building as him tomorrow sounded like a bullet dodged under the circumstances. Judy couldn’t blame him for being tired of the paperwork hell that was budget talk, but she’d rather be sympathetic from a safe distance.

The station was busy as ever. While police officers gossiped fit to put granny bunnies to shame, and Judy didn’t doubt that a homicide made for good gossip, life went on. There was no time to sit around talking when on the job. Winter Solstice was coming up. Every year, without fail, there was a spike in robberies, counterfeiting, and reselling of stolen goods as the holiday season fell upon them. Judy’s family had always focused on handmade gifts and tiny trinkets – with a family as big as theirs, it wasn’t possible to go all out with gifts. Zootopia was different. What was fine and traditional in the countryside didn’t fly out here, and so the precinct was a blur of mammals rushing to and fro, yelling for one another, and booking suspects.

“I hope it’s not going to be like this all month,” Nick said, looking on with amusement as a doe officer – Rowan, Judy thought her name was – struggled to restrain a ranting ibex. “I’d almost rather be on the streets again. At least when you’re hustling people out there, you get to leave when they get worked up.”

“You’d think they would know better than to steal something with the Solstice crowds,” she replied, shaking her head. “You wouldn’t believe how many people I caught in high school working Festival security – what?”

He was laughing, in spite of the case they were assigned. “Nothing, nothing. Of _course_ you worked security at a Solstice Festival. Why didn’t I realize that before? Tell me, did you frown the whole time and twirl your taser?”

“Hey, it was fun! I got to wear a uniform and stay up until dawn, and Bronfang made matching friendship bracelets for all of us so we could tell who the plain-clothes security guards were.” She pouted when he only snickered harder, then allowed herself a smile. “Alright, when I put it that way it’s a little dorky. But everyone’s a loser in high school.”

“True enough, Carrots, but most of us don’t run around protecting the honey buns at midnight with a panther.”

“Sugar buns. Honey buns are more of a southern-central thing. And I’ll have you know the other guard was a bobcat.”

“So your parents were fine with you working with a bobcat, but _foxes_ were over the line?” Only Nick’s quick eyes could have caught the flinch-twitch of her nose.

“Sort of. I didn’t tell them Bronfang was a bobcat until they brought all of us working security some blueberry scones and hot cider. They came around. Bron is such a dork nobody could be intimidated by him – it’s why he was so good at infiltrating crowds.”

“Ah. Yeah, that’s Finnick’s play, too. Act nice enough and nobody watches your paws.” He nodded his understanding. “Still wouldn’t have thought it would work on your parents.”

“Eh, you’d be surprised. Country folk aren’t entirely ignorant. And my mom will fuss over anyone if it’s cold enough.”

Nick raised an eyebrow. “Including me? If I can get more blueberries out of this Tundratown beat it’ll all be worth it.”

She rolled her eyes at him even as she took out her phone to send off a quick text. Almost instantly, her phone pinged as her mother texted back a flurry of emojis and capslock. “Yup. Blueberries are on their way now. Just don’t blame me if she sends you a set of thermal underwear or something with it too.”

“Pfft. It’s not that cold out there, Carrots.”

* * *

_The cold was sharp and clear, a morning cold with sea salt on the wind that woke up something in Judy._

_She had always been an early riser. Living on a farm, she more or less had to be. Even on vacation, though, she couldn’t quite shake the habit. Her grandparents were still asleep, her mother and father’s dual snoring fell and rose from up above her on the second floor, and her sisters Grace, Isabelle, Tara and Mira were huddled together for warmth under the comforter. Like many mammals this far up north, they slept in groups of five to a bed, trying to fight off the worst of the winter weather. Judy didn’t know how they could sleep with the energy in the air here, the inexplicable, indescribable something that made her want to get up and run._

_She finally couldn’t take it anymore, and carefully eased out of the bed. Dressing in the dark took longer than she would have liked, but once she had her boots on and her scarf tucked into her coat, she was out the door as fast as she dared to go, dodging squeaky floorboards and piles of sleeping siblings._

_The full moon up above seemed to light up the world. All around her the ground glinted, glittering a thousand shades of silver, sparks of blue and gold that disappeared as soon as she started to move. Icicles caught the light, seeming to glow. In the sky hung not just a moon but a sea of stars clearer here than in the countryside of Bunnyburrow, which she hadn’t thought was even possible. Judy took in deep breaths. Sea salt and the sweet smell of evergreen trees washed over her, intoxicated her, and she knew she had to see what the sky looked like from atop the hill by the main road. She wanted to see the world as it was in this perfect moment._

_Judy ran with surprising ease over the snowy landscape, sticking to the path her relatives took their snowmobiles down in winter and their four-wheelers down in summer. Though once or twice the ice under her feet was slick enough that she stumbled, she kept her momentum going. It felt natural to move through the forest like this. She moved on automatic up the hill, pausing only when she came to an obstacle she hadn’t anticipated: a bunch of trees, clearly knocked over by last week’s windstorm. The gnarled branches gnashed at the sky like angry teeth. Trying to climb over it was inviting injury._

_Cautiously, she knelt down to look under the trees. Those branches had snapped enough she might be able to clear them. She certainly stood a better chance of doing that than digging through the snow that had been hardened by refreezing after it rained._

_It was also incredibly uncivilized. The part of her that grew up in an enlightened time knew better. This wasn’t some reenactment of ancient times like she’d see on TV or in documentaries in school. The ten year old looked around, as if it were possible she’d be caught acting like a savage in the dead of night._

_No one was there. She dug at the snow lightly packed under the trees, the motions coming naturally to her after a few failed attempts. Her ears instinctively flattened against her head, pressing and flexing down to press against the curve of her head. Her back legs shifted to brace against the most solid part of the ground she could find. In a few quick pushes of her hind legs and rapid steps from her front paws, she was out on the other side._

_She had planned to get up afterwards, but on impulse she darted forward like that up the slope of the hill, paws finding easier purchase when she could flex her toes. Impulsively she kicked off her boots. The snow blurred by, streaks of silver-gray-blue-white, shadows and indents and smooth fresh powder, until she collapsed, breathless, atop the hill._

_The moon was brighter than anything she’d ever seen. Her eyes sought it out and fixed upon it. Up there within it was the moon god, Ixumutun, watching over the nocturnal peoples of the north. Judy had never been a great believer. Her father was more mainstream in his beliefs and she’d been to his church for solstices, birth celebrations and funerals. Judy didn’t know what people up here did for those things. She didn’t know if there was something she was supposed to do to talk to old gods. When she got back to the house, maybe she’d ask her grandparents more about it._

_For now she stared up at the sky, heartbeat hammering in her head, paws pleasantly aching from the way she’d run, feeling something beyond herself. Ixumutun. The god of truth and justice and uncompromising ideals, who became the moon rather than leave his sister to bear the whole weight of the sky as the sun by herself. Judy hoped that was what she’d do as a cop one day – help, and refuse to compromise or give up, and make the load of keeping everyone safe a little bit lighter for everyone else._

_Judy wasn’t sure she believed in much of anything, but she wanted to believe people had purposes in life. She wanted to believe that one day she’d go where she needed to be and do the work she dreamed of. Sometimes, with no one in her family fully onboard with the idea and the kids at school seemingly skeptical, she felt unbearably alone._

_But the moon was there for her. The stories of her grandparents were there for her, stories of good people doing the right thing no matter what, and she smiled up at the sky._

_In the cold, there was clarity._

_It was all she needed._

* * *

It was so, so much colder than Nick had predicted.

Judy, like many cops, was a morning person. She slammed down some coffee and showed up bright and early, ready to face the day. Nick was nocturnal by biology and demi-diurnal by choice. Morning had never been his favorite time of day even when he’d been in the right climate. Midway through the subway ride to Tundratown, he’d already decided this was his least favorite climate. Every time the subway car’s doors opened and a cold gust of wind hit, he regretted his life choices more and more. Worse, Judy seemed only mildly annoyed rather than genuinely irritated, which meant that if he said something, he’d look less tough than a bunny half his height and a third his weight. _Thank the saints Finn isn’t here – I’d never live this down._ Nick’s ears twitched as the icy air smacked into them unpleasantly. _Although he might have my back, actually. This weather would be a real health risk for him._

Most big-eared mammals avoided this part of the city. The cold tended to make them sluggish or tired quickly, but fortunately rabbits were a sturdy bunch of prey, kind of like bears in their ability to deal with a cold climate for work hours. He wouldn’t bet on Judy being able to live here full time happily, but she’d be able to work here well enough. Nick’s ears caught the shift in language as they departed and walked deeper into the business district of T-Town. All of it went right over his head, honestly. Finnick had taught him enough Southern Vulpes that he was able to function in the central district and his mother had kept him fluent in her native language, but he’d skipped all offerings of other language courses in high school and hadn’t attempted to learn anything else since. He hadn’t needed it back then. Here, though, he might want to reconsider that stance.

All the words blurred together in his ears. Trying to isolate individual words from each other was impossible, and he hoped Judy hadn’t been exaggerating her skills for the sake of the case. Now was not a great time to find out she wasn’t as fluent as she thought she was.

A young Arctic hare batted at Nick’s tail before his father pulled him away, muttering an apology. Nick grinned. Ah, bunnies – an entire race of people who either had too much fear or absolutely none. Strange as the frosty window panes and thick coats of this part of town were to him, he couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather be down here in the ice with than Judy Hopps, who veered more and more towards the ‘absolutely none’ side of the spectrum each and every day. _Mom always said I’d meet someone just as reckless as I am. I kind of thought that scenario would end up being warmer, though._

“Coffee!” Judy cheered, tugging him towards a street vendor with a cart that looked to be older than Nick was. “Finally! You need to try _proper_ coffee, it’ll perk you right up.”

“I’m plenty perky,” he groused, “when I don’t have to get up pre-dawn to go to work on time.”

“Ignore him, he’s cranky,” she told the coffee vendor, shoving money at him with a smile. “Two large black _kuukpiaq_ , please!”

He had to admit, he was alright with the berry-infused semi-coffee thing she handed him. The caffeine was welcome, at least, as was the scorching hot liquid. And he wasn’t oblivious to the fact that most of his fellow warm weather species, be they predator or prey, were all nursing their own cup. Judy barely needed the boost. She was one of those insufferable people who drank coffee for the flavor, and could go all day without having a caffeine crash. Apparently there were a lot more of those people out there than he’d thought. Personally, he was doing great to be done with his cup and more or less awake when they got to T-Town’s police office.

The building was all gray stone and old school architecture. Nick was willing to bet the vintage streetlights outside it predated his mother’s era, as did the ancient and dull-eyed woman at the front who buzzed them in. Judy’s badge was polished to a shine and her face had only just gotten out of the news from the Nighthowlers incident, but the aging weasel working admissions blinked at her obliviously for a long moment before allowing them back into the bullpen proper. The half of the building open to the public was quaint and charming in a historical district sort of way. The part they were actually expected to work from was rundown. Had things not been so dire, Nick would’ve ripped into it immediately. Had the coffee kicked in properly he’d have done it anyway, serial killers and body counts or not.

Chief Blakesley was easy to spot. He was the first hybrid cop on the force, taught in the police academy as an example to aspire to. A coyote-wolf hybrid with sleek gray fur that glinted gold in the light and a shredded, tattered left ear, he cut a stern figure in uniform, though his expression wasn’t unfriendly as he took in the sight of them and glanced at the clock. Judy had made sure they were early. She’d spent enough time looking up to the cy-wolf to know he didn’t suffer fools gladly.

“Haluugivsik,” he greeted them with a nod. Judy’s ears perked up. _Suluun dialect. So his wolf parent must be from the High North, maybe someone who moved out when the mining industry died._ She stowed that tidbit away for later.

“Haluugikpin. Officers Hopps and Wilde, reporting for duty. Did Clawhauser send over all the paperwork and debriefings you needed?”

“Yes. Very efficient, that man, despite my initial first impression of him,” Blakesley noted, looking over the files in front of him. His office was perfectly organized, almost beyond Judy’s comprehension. Everything was color-coded, filed away, and in easy to access and browse piles, shelves and filing cabinets. “Malitsoh also called ahead to alert me to the fact Forensics thinks this may be a cold case gone hot.”

Nick nodded. He didn’t want to speak just yet, not before he got a proper read on the man. Blakesley’s accent was hard to pinpoint, carefully practiced so as to not read as northern or southern, but also so clearly enunciated as to be distinct from a city center accent. His uniform was pristine as the day he’d gotten it. Clearly Blakesley cared a lot about first impressions – but not enough to make any attempt to disguise the gouges in his neck and obviously once-mauled ear. It was a look Nick had seen on gang members throughout his life, a deliberate contrast to draw the eye to the scars that showed a mammal had survived things that would kill a lesser man.

“Some of the MO and eye witness testimony indicates similarity to an old case,” Judy said thoughtfully, “but that’s also been true of several cases in the past five years, so I’m withholding judgment.”

“And what do you think, Officer Wilde?” Blakesley asked, meeting Nick’s green gaze with alarmingly bright amber eyes.

“I think it doesn’t matter what I think, because whether or not we have evidence it’s the same guy, it’s still a murder and a heinous crime, sir.”

“Good answer. I’ve got a few addresses for you two. Forensics has done as thorough a job as you can imagine with the body and crime scene, but you’re welcome to go there yourselves as well. After that, Rust gave us the names of some of Mara’s friends, and of course the parents will need to be interviewed. Questions?”

“Did our cover get entirely blown at the bar?” Nick asked. “If people there don’t know we’re cops, it might be worth it to start making that a regular stop of ours, see if we can find leads on this case or links to other crimes there.”

Blakesley didn’t sugarcoat it. “You’re a non-Arctic fox, Officer Wilde. Repeated visits to a Tundratown establishment will get you noticed, and not in a good way. I can’t risk tipping our hand to potential leads by having them notice you. I’m sorry. I’m sure you could do a good job working such an establishment for clues in any other biome, but mammals here aren’t as integrated as we’d like to think we are.”

“Noted. I appreciate the candor, sir.”

“I aspire to honesty, Officer Wilde, in all I do and say. Officer Hopps,” he turned to her with a calculating expression, “You may be able to cultivate useful relationships in that particular location. Badgers and rabbits frequent the area. It’s something to consider, but not something I would order you to do until we determine whether or not we have actable information from other sources. Give it some thought and we’ll see if it’s necessary.”

She was vaguely flattered that he thought she’d be able to work leads like that. Judy’s knowledge of gambling was miniscule and her experience on the street was limited to brief sting operations. Clearly, he had some faith in her abilities sight unseen, much as he refused to come out and say it in those terms.

“I’ll think about it, sir.”

“Good. Now, get to work. Dismissed.”


	4. qamna (that one inside, that one further in)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I have no excuse for the absurd delay between chapters so I'm not going to try to excuse it, I'll just say thank you to everyone who's still reading this despite the schedule slip. Y'all are great and I love all of you.

Judy still wasn’t used to seeing bodies.

“It was an impersonal attack, if you can believe it,” the criminal profiler from forensics told them, which was good because his chatter kept Judy from having to speak. She wasn’t sure she could open her mouth without puke coming out. “Strangled from behind – inherently impersonal, no prolonged chance for eye contact, distant. The angle and smoothness of the lines of the stab marks means she was unconscious or dead for most of the abdominal dissection, if not all. This wasn’t rage-filled or actively malicious, or it would been messier.”

Judy nodded, ears tense and twitching every so often, as if they wanted to stand up on high alert and press against her skull to make herself small at the same time. She was actively fighting to keep them still. Nick took pity on her and asked the follow-up questions.

“Can you gauge the size of who did this? Maybe give us a clue what we’re looking for in terms of species?”

Mara’s body was in one piece, at least. That was about all the silver lining Judy could find. The paws were what drew her eyes first, so visibly mangled and broken that they reminded Judy more of gnarled tree roots than anything once belonging to a mammal. Mara’s gloves were carefully folded off to the side, in a little pile with her scarf and boots. Forensics hadn’t gotten any clawprints off of it that they could use. The imprints they did get, though, indicated that the killer had worn gloves and that he’d been the only one to touch them – he had been the one to carefully set her belongings off to the side. The neat freak tendency was singularly disconcerting at a crime scene this brutal.

The bruises around Mara’s neck were visible even through the fur, swollen and then frozen like that by T-town’s intense cold. All the fur around the wolverine’s neck was parted in such a way that it gave them a good guess as to the size of the killer’s paws along with a clear indicator of how long he'd held onto her for, and Judy shuddered at the mental image of those large paws around that small neck. She never had a chance.

Normally they might be able to get some kind of residual DNA out from under a murder victim’s claws. Every animal with even the tiniest of claws or hard nails would lash out at an attacker, after all. In this case, the killer had removed them entirely and taken them with him. That had always been part of his MO. It was a perfectly sensible solution. The incisions were smooth, symmetrical, professionally done and deep enough to have gotten the entire claws out. There was no torn flesh or sloppy work here, no chunks missing that weren't necessary. This wasn’t some angry, cornered creature biting off another’s fingers in a fight. This was very clearly something a mammal would have to be calm and collected to do.

There were no accidents with regards to this case. Everything was incredibly purposeful, done with surgical precision. Judy’s legs tensed like she might need to bolt any second now. She saw Nick’s tail lash twice before he reined it in.

“The attacker was definitely taller than her, significantly so – the V-angle of the thumb imprints indicate he’d have to be leaning down quite a bit to get to her rather than being at a flat angle like if they were the same height. This bruising is definitely from someone with paws, not hooves, so that rules out that whole part of the animal kingdom.” The otter – Maxton, his name was; Judy had almost forgotten it, absorbed entirely in the sight of the body – sighed heavily. “I’m aware that doesn’t narrow it down much. But without DNA, and with how heavily tools were used to inflict damage outside the strangulation, I can’t in good conscience narrow it down further. I’d just be guessing.”

The absolute worst of the damage had been covered by a sheet, which Judy was grateful for. She didn’t want to see Mara’s carved-open lower body, and it wouldn’t provide much insight into the case. There was no DNA evidence to be found on the scene, nor was there any footprints left this long after the murder itself. Judy found her gaze drawn to Mara’s face, saved mostly from rot by the cold. The wolverine had been beautiful in life, silver fur that glinted gold in sunlight, lightening to white around her eyes, a rare coloration often considered lucky in the wolverine community. Her face was all soft edge and baby fat, juvenile despite almost being twenty. The decomposition hadn't been enough to take that from her. _It's like that deer fairytale, the one with the seven lemmings, what was it called?_ She couldn't recall.

Although the cold helped keep the smell down, it was still sharp and harsh, enough that the bunny found she had to cover her nose to lean down to confirm her suspicions.

“That’s _akutuq_ around her mouth. She must have only just finished eating when she was attacked. Maybe we can ask around, see what food carts here carry it, find out who saw her last? If she was with someone or if they saw someone out of place, it might be a lead.”

“And that’s a rare enough food for that to work?” Nick asked her, less out of doubt and more because he was never a food cart kind of guy; he’d run his fair share of sham operations based out of food carts, and he didn’t trust them enough to use them anywhere in the city anymore.

“Yeah, it is.” She turned to Maxton. “Do you know who sells it near here?”

‘Here’ was a more rundown part of Tundratown, at a crossroads behind a postal service warehouse and a commercial storage unit rental facility. The road that cut through this lonely little slice of Tundratown went down through these older businesses back through the local park and towards downtown. A mammal could get to a bus stop, a main road to hail a taxi on its’ way back from the business district or a sky tram once every hour on the hour further on down the path. It was a little off the beaten path, but a solid way around the slog of uptown traffic, so long as you knew what you were doing and didn’t mind the extra walk. Mammals took this route every day without fear. They’d still been taking it as Mara’s body had lain below them in a drain pipe, laid out by the iced-over water that filled the ditch.

During the day, it was safe. Safe enough that Mara had thought she could walk this way to catch her bus, eating a snack after a late shift at work. Had she had any idea she was being followed? Would she have realized something was wrong if she had, or would she have thought it was just another stranger on his way home, too?

“I can make a list, send it to you two later,” Maxton said, helpfully. “It’s a start, at least.”

Nick shot him a grateful smile. “Thanks. C’mon, Carrots, let’s get out of here and back towards civilization. We’ve got a family to talk to.”

* * *

“Let me do the talking,” Judy said, and Nick raised an eyebrow. “Or at least, let me do the hellos. Hello is a complicated word around here.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

Her ears perked up in amusement as she snorted. “What? No! I mean that literally. Every dialect has a different word for hello, and it changes depending on how many people you’re saying hi _to_ , so it’s probably faster to let me do it than to try to teach you a dozen new words over the course of the next ten blocks. Even some of my siblings haven’t learned the hellos, and Mom’s been trying to explain it to them for years.”

“…and _why_ does the word for ‘hi’ change depending on how many people are there? What sense does that make?” He wasn’t trying to be rude or taxonomist, and he considered himself an open minded enough guy, but this was the most baffling thing he’d heard in a while. “Big doesn’t have different hellos for whoever he’s talking to.”

“That’s because he defaults to Standard. He’s polite.” She caught his incredulous look and corrected herself, “He _is_. You two just got off on the wrong paw. Anyway, to answer your question, I have no idea. It’s just how things are done.”

“Ah. Same reason fennec foxes have three naming ceremonies per kid.”

“…really?”

“Yeah. Finn has already decided that if he ever settles down I have to go to all of ‘em. Payback for me making him show up to my graduation from the police academy.” He smiled almost serenely. “I’ve already told him you’re my plus one for those events, Carrots. If I have to suffer, so do you.”

“You really hate that kind of thing that much?”

“I hate anything that requires me to wear a suit. It’s the principle of the thing.”

The joy of walking through Tundratown on foot was that Nick got to see everything up close for once. He hadn’t been here during the day much during his years of less-than-legal work. At night, the cold hit a point where most mammals wouldn’t notice whatever he got up to, nor would they hang around if they did. Most of his activities here had always taken him to Big’s neighborhood or the junkyard, never to residential areas. Here was a side of Tundratown he hadn’t seen before, and he kind of liked it. Everyone wore coats and clutched hot cups of coffee. Children ran and slid on patches of ice they’d cleared off on the sidewalks, laughing and shoving each other playfully. A particularly industrious vendor had set up shop by an apartment building selling… something. Nick couldn’t read the sign and he didn’t know what it was, but it smelled like heat and spice and something fruity. Somehow the smell completed the scene for him, though, crystallized this part of the city in his mind as a distinct neighborhood the same way the smell of tortillas did for Finn’s neighborhood.

An Arctic fox gave Nick a polite smile as he stepped aside to let her by on the slim patch of cleared sidewalk. The way her eyes brightened and her ears perked up when she recognized him made him stand up taller, unable to help himself. All those years of telling himself that he didn’t care what mammals think had been undone by the way foxes looked at him now. He tried not to get his hopes up too high – he knew one fox on one precinct’s force wasn’t going to be enough to change the world. Life was a lot more complicated than that. But Judy made him want to believe things could change, even if only incrementally. _Try_ , she had said in her commencement speech at the police academy. _Try to make the world a better place._

And he was going to, even if he didn’t quite know how he was going to. He and Judy never had much of a plan when they went into these things. They improvised. With anyone else the lack of a plan of attack would make him nervous, but they’d toppled Bellwether’s entire elaborate scheme with less than a minute to whisper ideas back and forth with each other.

They approached the apartment complex the Thompson family lived in with their usual lack of a plan and an equally typical amount of unease. Some parts of being a cop were always hard; they’d had to break it to someone before that their loved one was dead, and Nick vastly preferred being shot at, all things considered. He _hated_ being the bearer of bad news.

_(Somewhere in the back of his mind he’d known even as a pup that something was wrong, that his dad should’ve been back before dawn. He’d spent the night awake, sitting on his bed, watching the light slowly return to the sky through his window hour by hour. When the police cruiser pulled up to their building he’d known it was significant, even if it he was too young to know what it was they’d come to tell his mother._

_Nick had knelt by his bedroom door and tried to peek out from under it, ears cocked at full attention. There was a pair of hooves, a deep low woman’s voice rich with regret. “Mrs. Wilde, I’d like to talk to you about your husband…”)_

Mara’s mother was a tall and slender wolverine, with warm eyes the color of the coffee served on the street and a reflexive polite smile, even under the circumstances. The warmth went out of her eyes when Judy held up her badge. Mr. Thompson was shorter, tenser, and there was no light in his caramel-brown eyes, fur coming in all silver with white patches at the roots.

“Haluugivsik,” Judy said. “My name is Officer Hopps, and this is Officer Wilde. We’d like to talk to you about Mara.”

Mrs. Thompson took a step back, and her husband wrapped an arm around her. He spoke when she could not. “Paglagivsik. Please, come in.”

The two wolverines leaned against each other for support as they let the officers in. Judy subtly kicked at Nick’s ankle and he glanced down in time to see her take off her shoes. He followed suit without a word. Now was not the time to ask questions. This was the worst moment, really, that moment before the horrible truth would have to be said. He barely took in the tapestries on the walls, the family pictures on the living room bookshelves, all the little things that reminded him this place had been home to a full family once. The couches were well-worn and had two quilts thrown over them to cover the worst of the scuff marks. He saw a lot of his old family home in this place and he tried hard not to focus on it.

Neither of Mara’s parents looked like they’d gotten much sleep lately. They were already aged by the experience. Judy met their eyes with genuine sympathy.

“I’m so sorry to tell you this, but… your daughter’s body was found last night.” She paused, then decided to stop there rather than launch into more details. Mrs. Thompson buried her face in her husband’s shoulder, but managed to nod at Judy regardless.

“We suspected as much,” she whispered shakily. “We knew – when someone isn’t found in the first forty-eight hours, it usually means… but I didn’t want to believe it, I didn’t… I didn’t want to believe…”

Her husband pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “We both wanted to hope for the best. Especially with the low homicide rates here, we – well.” He cleared his throat and took a deep breath, then another, before meeting their eyes. “What happened?”

“Your daughter was murdered,” Nick said, as gentle as he could be with such brutal news. He knew from experience that dancing around it only made that news worse. “We don’t have many leads. From what forensics dug up when they did a background check, Mara didn’t have many enemies. So we’re going to need you to answer some questions, so we can start working on finding who did this.”

“We’re very sorry for your loss,” Judy added as Mrs. Thompson clung to her husband desperately. “I know this must be hard to hear. If you need a minute…”

Mr. Thompson shook his head, though he was clearly exhausted already. “No. I can talk. I think I knew something like this had happened that first night she didn’t come home. Call it a father’s intuition, I suppose. I know my girl – I knew right away that she wouldn’t have run off, not without saying goodbye.”

“Was there anything unusual about the last night you saw her that you can think of?” Judy asked.

“Nothing that comes to mind. Mara texted ahead to let us know she’d be a little late because one of her coworkers hadn’t come in and she’d need to cover for them until a replacement could arrive. It wasn’t odd for her to work a few extra hours. Her coworkers were flaky, and Mara wasn’t adverse to a few extra hours and a few extra dollars.”

Judy nodded, filing that away for later. “Did she usually walk home from work?”

“No. She usually got a ride home with either Beth or Danny – that’s Elizabeth Morris and Daniel Vuk, her work friends – but neither of them were working late that night so she was going to walk home. I should’ve…” her father trailed off, eyes dropping to the floor. “I should’ve gone and picked her up. I shouldn’t have let her walk it.”

“Had she done that before?” Nick asked, raising his eyebrows slightly. “It’s not a long walk, and I’ve seen more mammals on foot here than in cars. That’s a thing people here do, right?”

“Yes, but I… I still shouldn’t have let her walk home _alone_. The other times she’d walked home she’d been with friends, I should – I should have told her to wait.” The wolverine shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, I’m rambling. This isn’t easy.”

“I know it isn’t, sir,” the rabbit said, even as her mind raced. _All the wounds were so deliberate and so precise, and nothing was done with claws – it wasn’t a crime of opportunity or a spur-of-the-moment thing, but Mara almost never took that route home. How did he know she’d be there?_ “We’re just trying to help. Is there anyone who might have known Mara would be alone at that moment? A work friend, someone she told where she was going – someone else we should be questioning?”

The Thompsons looked at each other helplessly, as if willing the other to have an answer. She could see their minds’ whirling, trying to produce a lead, a name, anything to give to them. This was worse than mammals not cooperating, honestly. People not wanting to talk to the cops didn’t frustrate Judy as much as people trying their best and having nothing to give her. She let her gaze wander to the pictures on the wall, portraits of Mara, her parents, her uncles and aunt and her grandparents and cousins. This had been home to a contented little family, once.

Her ears picked up at the sight of one picture. “Is that kit hers?”

Both Thompsons looked anywhere but at Judy or at each other. Mrs. Thompson crossed her arms defensively. Judy stood up, and when they didn’t react she went to the picture, examining the date. _A Summer Solstice baby. Poor thing, half a year isn’t long to have a mom…_

Mr. Thompson stood up and cleared his throat. “The little one’s asleep, but she’s in here if you’d like to see her.”

Nick and Judy followed him, exchanging a quick confused gaze. This hadn’t been on the file; there was no baby listed, nor any romantic partner. The nursery was really just the tiny room the family stored their washing machine and dryer in, though Judy had known enough kits in her time who found the sound soothing to see why that was a good idea. She herself had always been soothed to sleep by the repeated rumbling. But while Judy’s siblings were massive, wolverines sometimes only had one to a litter, and there was only one baby in the bassinet tucked into the corner. It took a second for her to put together the significance of what she was seeing, automatically leaning over to double-check. The kit had dark fur, thick and inky, and when Judy gently reached out to untangle the baby’s paw from the blanket, the texture of the fur let her know what she was looking at.

“She’s part bear,” Judy half-whispered, studying the too-dark fur and too-big claws, and Nick turned to her with wide eyes and a shocked open mouth, almost too stunned to speak.

“Carrots, you can’t just _say_ that,” he hissed, mortified. “She’s just… big.”

“Officer Hopps is right, actually,” Mr. Thompson said softly, watching his granddaughter sleep, smiling when she kicked a back paw at the blankets. “We don’t think it’s more than one-sixteenth, maybe less.”

“Uh, Mara’s file doesn’t have a baby on it,” Nick pointed out to his partner, eyes flickering from the baby to her and back again repeatedly, visibly trying to process this. “Why?”

Judy’s ears drooped. “Wolverines, bunnies and weasels have a pretty high rate of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. If a family does a home birth, they might not register a birth certificate until the next year. It’s… it’s bad luck, otherwise, to get your hopes up about a baby you might not get to keep.” She tried not to think of the many times she’d attended burial ceremonies for her own siblings over the years, wincing as she added, “You can still get death certificates, though. My mom keeps all the ones we have in a box with her wedding papers.”

Nick had never felt more uncomfortable in his life, and it showed. “I – I didn’t know. I don’t know much about babies, but… we should probably go find the dad, let him know Mara’s body has been found.”

“I can give you his information,” Mr. Thompson agreed, reaching down to pick up the baby as she squirmed and kicked at the blankets, blinking awake sleepily, “but he’s gone. He vanished a while back. We thought maybe it might be a runaway situation… or maybe my wife just wanted to believe it could be. And I wanted to believe her, because goddess knows I would’ve preferred that to this.”

 _That’s why the case was marked that way in the files_ , Judy realized. A girl and her known boyfriend going missing around the same time looked like a runaway situation from the outside already, but especially if the boyfriend was mixed. If someone had mentioned Mara’s boyfriend when doing the initial filing, then the report would’ve been marked as a runaway situation, not a probable homicide. The flaw in that theory, obviously, was that Judy had rarely heard of a runaway who abandoned her child, especially one as young as this particular kit was. It was especially out of character for a responsible full-time worker, part-time student with big career aspirations to do so. _I need to tell Blakesley about this. Whoever filed the initial reporting botched this. We could've been looking into this way sooner if it had been marked differently.  
_

“What’s her name?” Judy asked as the kit yawned and stretched, watching the rumpled black fur catch the light as they returned to the living room.

“Emily,” he replied, rubbing his granddaughter’s back fondly in soothing circles. “Mara would’ve named her Emma, but then that name got too popular.”

Emily squirmed and made grabby hands in the direction of Nick’s tail as her grandfather sat down on the couch with her. Without a word or a second of hesitation, the fox sat beside them and offered her the fluffy appendage. Immediately, the baby hugged his tail close, making happy cooing noises, nuzzling the fluffy fur there.

All three other adults fixed Nick with confused looks, and he shrugged. “Kits love the fluff. Trust me, she’ll be fine for the rest of questioning so long as she’s got something to hold onto.” At Judy’s raised eyebrow, he sighed and added, “I might’ve kitsat for Finn’s siblings once or twice, okay?”

Judy decided to let it drop, for now. The baby seemed rather content, at any rate, face buried obliviously in the softness. “Is the father’s family from Tundratown? And are they aware of what's happened?”

“Yes, they live over in the riverside apartments,” Mrs. Thompson replied, though her eyes and her thin, weak smile were reserved for Emily. “The Dyer family are good people. A little conservative, maybe, but they were kind to Mara and they love Emily. They were worried just like us when Mara went missing, and they helped us file the missing mammal report.” She winced as Emily gummed at Nick’s tail. “Sorry about that, she’s going to get drool everywhere…”

“Eh,” he shrugged, “kits are kits. It happens.” He tilted his head, studying Emily’s face in profile. “She doesn’t look much like a bear. What did her father look like?”

“Dark, like Em,” Mrs. Thompson replied. “Not as dark as Emily, and his ears weren’t as pronounced as hers, but these things skip a generation sometimes. He’s a tall man, though, and heavyset. Once you know what you’re looking for, it’s there.”

“Fortunately, most mammals around here either don’t know what they’re looking for, or don’t care if they stumble upon it. The Dyers are enough generations out from whatever crossover was there that it hardly matters, especially since it’s a mixture of predators, and northern predators, too.” The older wolverine leaned over to scratch behind Emily’s ears, smiling. “Emily’s going to be just fine. Officer Hopps aside, no one else has put the pieces together.”

“Yeah, about that,” Nick said, turning to his partner with a raised eyebrow, “ _how_ did you clock this that fast?”

“The cold case file we read,” she said with just enough intonation to tell Nick silently _don’t let them know who we’re looking into_ , “mentioned targeting individuals with a mixed background. We haven’t been able to dig up any other substantive motive for someone to want to hurt Mara. Bigotry would fill that gap. Even though she’s not mixed, her daughter is, and her boyfriend, too. So…”

Mrs. Thompson gathered Emily to her, ignoring the baby’s protests as she was taken from the soft fluff of Nick’s tail. She said nothing, but the look she shared with her husband was pure fear.

* * *

Their questioning Mara’s boss produced zero leads. Talking to her work friends managed to get them even less; apparently she’d been a private and academically-focused person, and she didn’t socialize often. She was kind and well-liked, but not somebody mammals had a lot of insight into. With her other responsibilities weighing on her, Mara had precious little free time. No one had hung out with her. No one knew if she’d had plans that night or might’ve met up with someone. It was one shrug after another, a sea of confused non-answers, and by noon both officers were about ready to pull their own fur out in frustration.

“At least we can get lunch as soon as we find the akutuq vendor,” Nick grossed, as Judy reviewed their notes. “Right? That’s a lunch food?”

“I mean, kind of? Anything’s a lunch food when you’re a cop.” She shrugged, tucking the notepad away in her messenger bag. “It’s egg yolk, berries and bird fat wrapped in dough and fried. You might like it.”

“At this point that sounds heavenly. Anything warm works down here, really.” He shivered as the wind picked up, privately thankful he didn’t have to live here. A few hours in the charm of the small stores and cheerful kids had worn off and he wanted to be able to go somewhere without having to wear snow boots. “Think we could write this off as a work expense?”

She smiled in spite of their complete lack of progress. “If you want to be the one to ask Blakesley to sign off on that, you be my guest.”

They shared a smile. While nice enough to them, Blakesley was similar enough to Bogo they weren’t about to ask him for favors just yet. They both had that same 'don't waste my time', no-nonsense energy to them. Judy had texted him periodic quick updates and got the sense from his quick, brusque little replies that he was someone always in motion when at work, digging into all the cases ongoing in his precinct and making sure everyone was making progress. He liked that she was being thorough. She liked that he had immediately told her he was looking into who’d done the original filing to find out who had omitted, in his words, ‘highly godsdamned relevant details any rookie with a month of academy training should’ve known to look into’. She didn’t want to think about how mad he was inevitably going to be at the poor soul who’d filed this.

Judy also didn’t want to sit around thinking for too long about a six month old baby whose mother was never going to come home. Hence the relentless work this morning, despite a continual sea of dead-ends. Mara wanted to be an investigative reporter, but whatever her first ‘real investigation’ was, she hadn’t given anyone any real hints about. It was an unknown, and since it was, that meant all the leads it might produce were closed off to the investigation, too. _She figured out who Rust’s criminal employer is, so she was probably pretty decent at digging things up. I can see why she’d be a danger to anyone involved in T-Town’s rising crime wave, and I can see why a theoretical serial killer wouldn’t want her snooping around, but why kill her? Why not threaten her, or threaten her parents or her daughter? Murder is a high-risk solution._

_Unless the killer had some other reason to want her dead that went beyond her just being a security risk._

_Emily._

She shuddered. The thought was both deeply unpleasant and woke up her big sister instinct, the need to protect the smallest in the burrow. Judy felt the fur on her ears rise. She hadn't wanted to believe her own theory when she said it aloud to the Thompson family, but there really weren't other viable explanations. This fit, much as she didn't want it to.

“Hey, Judy?” Nick asked, thankfully interrupting her train of thought.

“Yeah?”

“You, uh, you seemed pretty unsurprised about Emily.”

Judy tilted her head in acknowledgement. He met her gaze, but couldn’t read the emotions he found there. “I… I had a friend when I was younger. I used to see him when I went to visit my grandmother. He…”

_(Blood darkening his already deep ink-brown fur, Tuvrak turned his eyes to the ground, shoulders heaving with the deep breaths he took to try to calm down. Judy’s ears flattened in anger, curled and flexed as she bolted forward and put herself between him and the other children as if she could somehow shield him from the world._

_“Who threw that rock?” She lashed out, kicking a spray of snow and icy mush at them when they snickered at her, splattering their clothes. Her fur was standing on edge, and it was all she could do not to bare her teeth. “Tell me right now, who threw that?!”_

_“Or what?” Grace giggled behind her paws, rolling her eyes. “You’re going to arrest me, Officer Hopps?” Her friends laughed at the nickname.  
_

_Judy stormed over to her, violet eyes blazing red with the sunset’s orange light, and grabbed the other girl’s pearl necklace. The clasp broke with one yank and with one smooth motion, Judy sent it sliding down the hill, the pearls swallowed up by the snow in the blink of an eye, lost forever. The other kids went quiet, staring at her with wide eyes, and no one’s eyes were wider than Grace’s. The two rabbits stared at each other, Grace’s perfectly white fur lit from behind like a halo, pretty cerulean eyes framed by thick lashes and dainty pink nose twitching wildly. She was gorgeous. She was wealthy._

_Judy didn’t care._

_“I’m going to tell my dad!” Grace snapped, a threat that meant nothing to Judy, whose family didn’t work at the mine and didn’t go to her church. “Then you’ll be sorry!”_

_“No you won’t – you’d have to admit you were hanging out with me, which would mean you went up to the hills when your dad said you couldn’t, and into_ bear territory _, too.” Judy’s nose and ears were locked into position as she drew herself up to full height. “But you can go ahead and tell your dad if you want. I’ll tell my grandpa. He worked with your dad for thirty years and he’s known him for forty, so we’ll see how that goes for you.”_

_“It was just a joke! God, what is wrong with you? It’s a rock, not a bullet!” Grace’s brother grabbed her by the shoulders, hauling her back. In his pale blue eyes, Judy saw actual regret. “Ken, back me up here!"_

_“…we need to get back before it gets dark.” He nodded once to Judy, silver-tipped ears drooping in what might’ve been defeat or relief. “The old ski lodge has a First-Aid kit in it if you don’t mind walking to the top of the hill.” His eyes flickered to Tuvrak, then dropped to the ground. He left without another word._

_She nodded back, and turned to her friend, gently reaching for one of his paws with both of his. The rough texture of bear fur couldn’t hide the way his paws shook slightly, eyes glossy with unshed tears. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”)_

“He didn’t have it easy. Bear traits are easy to clock, when it’s more than an eighth, and people saw what they wanted to see. Dumb bunny, sly fox, angry bear.” She stuck her hands in her pockets, frowning. “They never gave him a chance. I think they figured he deserved everything they did to him.”

Nick nodded. “You don’t have to tell me what that’s like. You think it’s why our perp went straight to homicide instead of just threats?”

“You heard what Maxton from forensics said – it was impersonal and not angry. I’ve seen people hurt somebody not because they’re mad, but because it’s fun and they don’t feel bad when it’s the ‘wrong’ kind of mammal.” Judy’s ears drooped suddenly as she heaved out a huge sigh. “It sounds stupid, but I’d kind of hoped mammals would’ve outgrown this sort of thing by now.”

“Yeah, well. In Zootopia, anyone can be anything, Carrots, and for some people, that means being awful. But that’s why we’re here, right?”

“Right.” She gave him a weak smile, sniffed the air, and instinctively course-corrected to get to the food, the way she always had up north when her family ventured into town to go shopping. “Come on, let’s go see if the mammals working the food stalls saw anything."

_(The Solstice Festival's market had been abuzz with noise and motion that night, a blur of mammals talking, singing, laughing, seeking out gifts or friends or family, and Judy's paw in Tuvrak's went unnoticed as she tugged him deeper into the crowd. It was the first time his family had ventured this far south for the holidays, and she was determined to show him all the wonders of Bunnyburrow, from the homemade jewelry to the handcarved wooden toys to the fresh, hot sugar buns. To her eyes the sugar glittered more prettily than any diamonds that night. Up above their heads, the strings of lights cast a warm yellow glow over everything. In this light he was unmistakably a bunny, ordinary in everything but the darkness of his fur and a slight height advantage over the other teenagers. An uncritical eye could've dismissed it entirely. And as she and Tuvrak got their food and sought out a good place to watch the ice skaters, she simply let the fact there were any real differences between them slip her mind entirely.  
_

_In that perfect moment, with a food stall bun in one paw and Tuvrak's paw in the other, she saw only what she wanted to.)_


	5. kukixuktuq (moving about from place to place)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you I'd start updating without months between updates! And by God, I will deliver, if only because thoughts about this fanfic keep coming to me when I'm in the bath. (No, I don't know why.)

“Oh, yeah, I saw her.” The food stall vendor handed Judy back the picture she’d shown him, nodding. “She wasn’t a regular or anything, but she stopped by that night. I was just packing things up when she stopped me, asked me if I could hold up just a second, give her some dinner before I closed. She tipped generously, wished me a good night and went on her way.”

 _Please don’t let this be a dead end,_ Judy prayed silently, nose twitching slightly. “Was she with anyone?”

“No.” The snow leopard scooped some steaming hot akutuq into a cup as Nick counted out his money – this was a working lunch, after all. “She was meeting someone, though. Kept checking her watch; you know wolverines, they like old tech like that, even young ones like her. Asked me if the trails were still open, which was odd. They almost always are, y’know?”

Nick and Judy shared a hopeful look. The bunny leaned in over the counter, ears perking up. “She was meeting someone? Did she say who?”

“Nah. I asked her, ‘what’re you all wound up for?’ and she said, ‘I’ve got somewhere to be.’ So I’m still waiting for the fryer to finish, so I try to stall for time and ask, ‘Oh? Boyfriend?’ and she gives me this _look_ , like that’s the worst thing that could’ve come out of my mouth, and says, ‘No. No, this is all business.’ I thought she was meetin’ somebody for a job interview or something, so I didn’t ask anything else. Nothing seemed off about it at the time, but… I’ve seen the missing posters.” Sighing, the snow leopard counted out Nick’s change and shook his head. “I should’ve asked her if she wanted me to call a cab or something. I do that sometimes, for younger mammals running around after dark, but it just didn’t occur to me then.”

“No one’s blaming you,” Nick assured him, handing Judy her cup and spoon before picking up his own, the warm styrofoam a relief to his chilled paws. “You couldn’t have known. Do you know anyone else who might’ve been out that late – some other vendor going home or packing it in who might’ve seen something?”

“I’m the last guy to pack it in around here, officers. I always have been. I wish I had better news, but I can’t think of anybody else who’d be out that late. I’ll ask around, though, if you want me to. A wolverine that pretty catches eyes; if anyone saw her, they’d probably remember.”

Judy shook her head, exhaling long and hard through her nose. “No, that’s – that’s okay. But we may call you if we have additional questions, if that’s alright.”

He nodded. “Of course, Officer. I got a few cubs of my own goin’ into college, getting their first jobs – I can’t imagine what her family’s going through. You need me, I’m a call away.”

She waited until she and Nick had walked out of the man’s range of vision to groan, ears drooping considerably. That was better than nothing, she knew. One of the worst things that could happen in a homicide investigation was to have the hours leading up to the death be a big blank. Those hours were like a map that would lead them to the murderer, and they wanted every little detail filled in that they could get. So this was better than a total blank page, but she couldn’t see them turning this into the clue that cracked the case wide open just yet. _Then again, I didn’t recognize that the Night Howlers were the clue that would crack open the Bellweather investigation right away, either. We just need time._

Rust had said Mara had started uncovering things, realized that the crime uptick in Tundratown was tied to one person. She’d put together that he was working for someone who was working for someone else, and that kind of evidence had been enough to fuel her own investigation. If Judy only had access to Mara’s notes, her cellphone, her laptop, it would’ve been enough to blow this whole thing wide open. But those things had been in her work bag, and had been gone by the time they found the body. So what Judy was left with was only the knowledge that an investigation had been ongoing, that someone had murdered Mara to keep the truth from getting out, and that they likely could have kept Mara silent through buying that silence but had opted for murder instead. Judy wasn’t sure if she wanted to believe this was someone copying the M.O. of an old, uncaught serial killer, or if it was arguably better if there was only one mammal out there that depraved.

“So that’s how he got her from behind,” Nick mused aloud. “She was on her way to meet him, or meet his employer, we don’t know where the killer was in the chain of command, and he got her while she was distracted. Must have got to her before wherever the planned meeting spot actually was.”

“We should look into the Dyer family. They’re our next lead – and I don’t think this is enough to figure much out, in and of itself. We need more information.” She watched him eat with a sigh of fond irritation. “Give it a second to cool and you’ll stop burning your tongue, you know.”

Defiantly, her partner popped another spoonful of akutuq into his mouth, wincing at the heat. “No. It’s cold out, Carrots, I need this.”

“You’re such a child sometimes,” she chided, though there was no disdain in it. “My sister Hope used to burn her tongue every Solstice that way, you know. She only stopped doing it when the akutuq vendor in Bunnyburrow moved to the next province over.”

“Sounds like a bunny of refined taste and culture. I like her already.” He grinned when she rolled her eyes at him. “Hope is such a classic virtue name. I didn’t realize bunnies did those.”

“And other than me, how many bunnies do you actually know?”

“There were a few rabbits who went to my high school.”

She rolled her eyes a second time, unable to keep the know-it-all tone out of her voice. “Did you actually talk to them, though? Or did you just assume they were country bumpkins and keep walking?”

“…I wouldn’t do that _these days_ , Judy. I’m not the guy I was in high school. But yeah, fine, you made your point. You are in fact the only bunny I really know.” He took another too-hot bite before asking, “So. Virtue names are big, with bunnies?”

“Yup. Word names, too. I’ve got a River, Brook, Hope, Faith, Charity, Bliss, Robin, Flower, Joy, Love and Lovely – they’re twins, Sunshine, Felicity, Divinity, Ash, Oak, Wonder, Reverie, Merry, Hyacinth, Cricket, Valiant, and Hollyhock in my family.” She answered Nick’s confused look with, “Hollyhock is a plant.”

“…I knew that.”

“Sure you did, Nick. Sure you did.”

* * *

_Judy kicked off her boots and dug her feet into the snow, tensing her legs to try to see if she could tell just how sturdy it was before she started digging._

_She’d always heard stories about how Arctic bunnies had to dig into the ice and live in caverns they made, back in the old days. It sounded insane, the idea of trying to stay warm under the ice, but more absurd still was the concept of being able to dig through it by paw enough to hollow out a place big enough for a mammal, let alone dozens of mammals. The thought nagged at her enough that she couldn’t help darting off to try it, when it got snowy enough the rest of her siblings had headed back inside for the day. They wouldn’t help her, thought it was crazy to even try to dig out there in all that._

_It_ was _crazy – and challenges lured Judy like a moth to the flame. She stabbed her gloved front paws into the earth and started digging with her back ones, digging deep scoops out of the ground with her kicks, carving out a ditch into the ice. This wasn’t her first try at this, but she hadn’t found what she was looking for yet. Her grandparents and great-aunts had mentioned a ‘trembling’ in the dirt, a soft not-quite-steady quality that diggers sought out. Judy pressed low to the ground, all four paws flat to the earth, and shifted her weight from one limb to another, seeking out a weak spot._

 _Her right foreleg shifted forward a little more than the others, and when she dug at the snow there, it gave way with a surprising ease. Grinning wildly, she practically dove onto it, limbs a blur of motion as she imagined the looks on her siblings’ and cousins’ faces when she showed them a real ice burrow. The motions came to her with surprising ease, back legs kicking in rhythm to get the packed snow from below up, out and onto the surface, and she found herself half-concealed in the ice before she had to stop to catch her breath. Laying down, she could feel that what she’d dug already had a downward slope, and a spike of giddy pride went through her. She wasn’t the biggest in her litter, but she wasn’t weak, either._ Anyone can do anything. You just have to work hard for it. _Judy shut her eyes for a second, imagining herself in Zootopia, kicking up sand in Sahara Square into a burglar’s eyes with her strong legs and saving the day. One day, she was going to show the world out there just what one bunny could do._

_Something touched her back foot, still sticking out the entryway of her burrow-in-progress, and Judy kicked out of sheer instinct, front paws scrabbling on the ice to twist herself around so she was huddled facing the front. She almost screamed, but the sound lodged in her throat, forced down by some need of hers to be tough like the cops on TV._

_Meeting her startled violet gaze were the tawny-grey eyes of a bunny about her age, with thick nearly black fur and short ears. His snout was a little short, face a little rounder than most. He held up his front paws as if in surrender. “I’m sorry! I – I didn’t mean to scare you, I just wondered what you were doing?”_

_“Making a burrow,” she said, with enough conviction to sound like she knew what she was doing. “What are_ you _doing?”_

_“Hiking,” he told her, scrunching up his nose as the wind whipped at them. “I live over the hill.”_

_Judy tried to remember which family lived where. “You’re one of the Sands kids?”_

_“Yeah. Tuvrak Sands. My dad’s Greg Sands, the bunny with the speckled nose and the green eyes? Runs the hardware store in town?”_

_“Oh. I’ve met your dad. He’s really nice. I haven’t seen you around, though.” She scrambled out of her makeshift burrow and stuck out a paw for him to shake. “My name’s Judy! Judy Hopps.”_

_“Hopps?” Tuvrak’s brow knit in confusion at the unfamiliar surname._

_“My mom’s maiden name was Piksrun.” She gestured in the direction of her grandparents’ house, vaguely. “Bonnie Piksrun, Sunrise and Tom’s daughter?”_

_“Oh, yeah. Tom Piksrun used to be head of the union back when the mines were still operating. My dad says your grandpa is really cool.” They shared a smile, the small-town kind that came from mutual appreciation, from familiarity and having all the same people and places in their minds’ eyes to use as a common reference. “Are you visiting for the holidays? I can show you around! I know where all the old abandoned buildings are from back when the mines were going.”_

_She grinned so wide it hurt, eyes sparkling at the thought of all the adventures they could go on. “I’d love that! Momma said we’re going to come here at least once a year from now on, so you can show me everything!”_

_His grin was a lot smaller, and his teeth a lot sharper, but she paid it no mind. “I’d like that. I don’t really have a lot of friends around here.”_

_“Well, you do now. You have me.”_

* * *

The Dyer household was in a nicer part of Tundratown, comparatively speaking.

There was a different style of architecture to this part of town, one Nick’s untrained eye could still pick up on despite not knowing much about that sort of thing. The decorative quoins and engravings on the corners of buildings, strings of lights along the base of fences to let rodents see their way around and the evergreen bushes all clued him into the fact that a different segment of the population lived in these parts. Most of the faces they passed now were prey, including a few bunnies. They gave Judy a polite nod and Nick a slight double-take. Whether that was because he was a predator or due to him being a warm-weather mammal in a very cold part of town, he wasn’t sure. Up above the scurrying of Siberian flying squirrels caught his eye, but they were too fast for his eye to track, and otherwise it was a quiet place, less foot traffic and ambient noise than the other neighborhoods.

He saw the distinction between prey and predator here, as with any other part of Zootopia. He’d grown up in the heart of the city, where the delineation was obvious and unquestioned, and as much as Judy was getting a warm reception here, the looks he got were more mixed, especially in this neighborhood. The flying squirrels lived up on the uppermost levels of buildings, while bunnies, elk, moose, deer, mice and lemmings made up the lower floors. Only the basement levels had any predators – and it didn’t slip Nick’s notice that a below-ground home would be hardest to heat and most prone to flooding and infrastructure problems. He also didn’t fail to notice that nicest buildings, the ones with front lobbies that mammals would need to be buzzed into in order to enter, were pred free. _Typical,_ he thought, a touch bitterly. _Not one fox in this part of town as far as the eye can see, except me._

The Dyers were the only wolverines in their building. The otter behind the front desk knew who Judy meant from the word ‘wolverine’, which Nick didn’t take as a good sign, so he was pleasantly surprised when they were directed to the elevator and told to head to the top full-size mammal floor. Judy’s surprise was broadcast by a quirk of the ears; he was getting better and better at reading her, the more time they spent together. Nick had always been a quick study.

 _(“People aren’t that complicated,” his father told him, in a low soft tone that was like being hugged in and of itself. “Mammals aren’t so different from each other, Nick. Maybe we don’t stomp our feet like bunnies when we’re upset or purr like cheetahs when we’re happy, but everyone, from the tiniest shrew to the biggest elephant, we all_ feel _. All you have to do is look for it.”_

_“And if I get better at that, I’ll have more friends?” Nick asked, oblivious to the falseness of his father’s smile and the way his mother bit her lip and looked away._

_“Of course you will, buddy. If you treat people well enough and focus enough on what they’re feeling, people will be thrilled to be your friend. You’re great – they just don’t know it yet.”_

_Nick had batted at his father’s paw as the older fox mussed up his head fur, and believed him completely.)_

There were only four separate apartments up on the top floor. That meant that the rooms were bigger, rent was higher, privacy was easier to maintain and there was a hint of respectability to the place. Nick had grown up in more than one bad apartment. He’d seen his own reputation take a hit at school when he said what his address was. This was the inverse of that, a high floor of a good building in a good neighborhood that didn’t normally have predators, and he felt a sense of intrigue. He’d always been interested in mammals who ‘made it’, who ended up in places like this where they weren’t welcome and where they stood out like sore thumbs. Some part of him respected the hustle, doubly so if it was a legitimate above-the-law hustle.

Mrs. Dyer opened the door after a moment, and Nick could tell from the towel she was using to clean her paws that she’d been in the middle of cooking. The smell of fresh bread hit his nose and he had an unexpected pang of nostalgia for his mother’s bread, dark and rich and savory. “Hello, can I help you?”

“I’m Officer Hopps, ma’am, and this is my partner, Officer Wilde. We’d like to talk to you about your son, Jonah. May we come in?”

Beyond the two smaller mammals, Nick could see into the apartment. The wallpaper was flower-patterned and cream colored, the floors sleek dark teak wood, paintings on the wall, a thick ram’s wool rug in the entryway. The living room was barely visible, if he tilted his head just right, and there was the faint sound of a TV playing in the background. He wondered how much that antique chaise lounge cost – probably more than his rent back at his place. Mrs. Dyer was tall and slender, with a long dignified snout and small, round ears. A pearl necklace around her neck was a subtle signifier to him that the Dyer family was living comfortably uptown. He’d seen and sold enough fake pearls to identify the real thing when it showed up in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Dyer said, putting a paw on the doorframe and leaning in, lowering her voice, “but I don’t want to do this while my youngest is here. She’s been worried sick, and seeing cops here would just make it worse. Can we do this another time? On Monday, maybe, when the little one is in school?”

Nick’s ears picked up the sound from the TV a little more clearly if he cocked his head. It was _Autumnbrook_ , that teen drama Finn’s sister watched with near religious devotion. “Your little one can’t be too little if you’re letting her watch a show that just made headlines for a teen pregnancy plotline.”

He could spot false innocence at a distance. The only mammal who’d managed to hustle him in the last five years was Judy, and frankly that was a mix of him underestimating a bunny and being cocky. To someone else, he might’ve seemed cynical. He preferred the term realist. _(“Cynics are broken optimists who call themselves realists to cope,”_ the voice of his father echoed in his head, but his father ended up shot in an alley and Nick was still breathing, so he dismissed it with prejudice.) Mrs. Dyer’s knees locked and her hands stilled when she was lying. Mammals that had learned to make eye contact while lying – a good trick, one he used himself pretty often – usually had other tells. In her leggings and shirt-dress, it was possible to clock her body movements fairly clearly.

She stared at him. Other mammals might’ve backed down, people who cared about how much money she had and how much influence, who didn’t want to risk their reputation taking a dive, but he was a cop. One of the benefits of that was that he didn’t have to care who he crossed anymore. Bogo would protect him from any complaints she might file and her word had no value outside of Tundratown.

“…I want to talk to you in private,” Mrs. Dyer said quietly, and her slumped shoulders gave away her honesty, “because I don’t know if my daughter might’ve been involved or not in Jonah disappearing. I can’t do an interview she might overhear.”

Nick and Judy exchanged equally surprised glances. Judy opened her mouth to speak, only to be cut off.

“Who’s at the door, Mom?” a young wolverine asked from the living room doorway, meandering out casually. She had stylishly ripped white jeans, a band hoodie with the name of some pop act on it, and thick eyeliner that highlighted the high cheekbones and deep-set almond eyes nature had blessed her with.

He didn’t give Judy the chance to speak. The too-casual tone and the flickering of the girl’s eyes from place to place screamed _pulling a hustle_ and he had to redirect her attention immediately. The problem with that was that there weren’t many reasons to be talking to her mom that she’d buy as an excuse. Nick knew this girl would start building alibis if she realized the cops were involved. Could he pretend to be a coworker of her father’s? No. He didn’t know enough about the Dyers to pull that off. Old college friend of her mother’s was a slightly better alias, but that wouldn’t explain Judy’s presence here and he didn’t trust Carrots to know enough about Zootopian colleges to bluff her way through that. They definitely couldn’t pass as plumbers or salesmammals, either.

So what fell out of his mouth was, “Hi there. We’re your new neighbors.”

Her gloriously silver eyes, sharp as knives and twice as pretty, narrowed. “Really? What room are you in?”

“17-4,” he lied, grateful he’d looked at the mailboxes behind the front desk and remembered which ones had vacancies. “Just moved in today.”

“…and you are…?” she asked, squinting at Judy. Judy, for her part, improvised beautifully, grabbing Nick’s paw and standing on the absolute tips of her tiptoes to press a kiss to Nick’s cheek. The wolverine rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Like seeing my parents make out all the time wasn’t bad enough. I’m Lyla, by the way. If you hear a scream, that’s me playing horror games at night.”

“Noted,” Nick said, while Judy smiled sunnily at Lyla, every inch the cheerful cute bunny stereotype.

The bunny turned back to Mrs. Dyer, smile still firmly in place. “Like we were saying, if you want to meet up and chat some time, that’d be great! And we should definitely exchange phone numbers, so we can ping you if there’s an emergency – remember that awful fire downtown last year, down where the polar bears live? Gods, I’d just hate for something like to happen and for you not to know if your family made it out.”

Mrs. Dyer shot her a grateful look and handed over her phone. “Of course. Add yourself, and of course I’d love to get to know you and your…”

“Boyfriend,” Judy and Nick said simultaneously, having both reached the conclusion they couldn’t pass for married.

“Boyfriend,” she nodded. “I know moving is always a little intimidating, but don’t you worry, we’re a lovely little community once you get to know us. Isn’t that right, Lyla?”

Lyla tilted her head, staring at Judy and then at Nick with intense scrutiny. “What’re you doing moving here? Neither of you are from the High North.”

“Avva’Mamaixarmit,” Judy corrected. Lyla stared at her intently now, studying her ears, her coloration, her paw shapes. Arctic hares didn’t have a ton of physical differences from their southern counterparts, though, and apparently Judy passed, conditionally. “Qianbaqataatagalik.”

“Whatever.” She waved a paw dismissively, returning to the TV. “Just don’t make out in the hall like my parents and we’re cool. Welcome to Tundratown.”

They both breathed a sigh of relief, grateful to take Mrs. Dyer’s cell number and go. They could arrange another meeting and an in-depth interview later, when it wouldn’t raise the suspicions of a possible suspect. Nick was all about bold hustles, but that girl was more perceptive than he would’ve liked, and he didn’t know if he’d be able to keep up an act that’d fool her for long. Much as he wished he could just take her mom to some café to do a quick preliminary interview, that wasn’t in the cards right now. Right now, they were doing good to get out without anyone glimpsing their badges.

Judy didn’t let go of his paw until they hit the streets. His fingers felt oddly cold without hers pressed against them.

* * *

Finnick picked them up so they wouldn’t have to commute home.

It was one of those things he insisted on doing after Judy hooked him up with a decent part time gig. She had taken one look at the murals he did and the counterfeit art in his van, asked if it was really his work, and then immediately hooked him up with a city program to cover graffiti with ‘proper’ art. He spent his days painting over hateful slurs and gang signs with whatever came to mind. So long as it was appropriate, the city didn’t particularly care what he chose to use as the new subject matter, and the paychecks were steady. They weren’t particularly fat checks, admittedly. She’d been surprised when he expressed the desire to pay her back, since she wasn’t exactly making him rich. But she was helping him build up a portfolio of art and giving him legitimate references, and he figured those long-term benefits deserved a kindness in turn. Judy tried not to take advantage of his kindness too much.

Still, she wasn’t too proud to call in the occasional ride home, to Nick’s place or to a crime scene out in the middle of the city. She liked the experience. Finnick played his music loud enough to rattle her teeth in her head, the smell of smoke and catnip that he was perpetually ‘just holding for a friend’ permeated the vehicle, and if she was lucky, Nick might lean over and tell her a story from the old days as they drove through a neighborhood he’d frequented. Finn would retaliate by telling her an equally juicy story where Nick _wasn’t_ the suave city fox he’d like to make himself out to be. Judy loved it. These were the sort of moments she’d been devoid of out in the countryside surrounded by family, old schoolmates she’d grown up with and old people telling the same old stories over and over about the town.

“You’re a traitor, Carrots,” Nick groused as she and Finn belted out the lyrics to a Skunkex song and then attempted to make noises to mimic the dubstep bass drop. “I trusted you to pick _good_ music when it’s your turn!”

“Hey man, she _did_!” Finn laughed, delighting in his friend’s agony. “She may be all Lapine up front, but she’s Vulpine at heart!”

Judy blinked, one ear twitching in confusion. She turned down the music to ask, “Lapine? What does that mean?”

Finnick seemed surprised she needed the explanation. “It’s, uh. You know, foxes are Vulpine, mountain lions are Leonine, bunnies are Lapine. It’s what we call you in Southern Vulpine circles – you’ll have to ask Nick for the North version, I speak enough of that to hit on sweet North vixens and that’s it.”

“No, you speak enough to _unsuccessfully_ hit on North vixens,” Nick corrected, grinning when Finn bared his teeth in response.

“Ignore him, Judita.” Finn accelerated and Judy pretended not to notice they were going over the speed limit. “It’s not a bad word if that’s what you’re wonderin’. I don’t have anything against anybody. I don’t have the time to waste on hate – I’m all about the hustle.”

That sounded about right, honestly. Finn spent a lot of time working, and didn’t seem averse to the idea of honest work when he could find it. She’d never asked what he was funneling the money towards, given his apartment was in a pretty rundown part of town, instead opting to either assume he was saving up to move to a better neighborhood or had other expenses she was unaware of. Much like with Nick, Finnick wasn’t someone she wanted to offend by prying into his life. Foxes were so often assumed to be poor, stupid, or bad with money that it was a minefield to navigate money talk around them.

So she seized upon a different subject of conversation instead. “There’s a nice silver fox in my apartment complex on the fifth floor. Single, likes dubstep, bartends for a living – I could put in a good word for you? She’s cute.”

Now it was Nick’s turn to laugh while Finnick sputtered indignantly. “I don’t need help getting dates from the fuzz!”

“That’s not a no,” Judy noted, grinning as the fennec fox’s ears flushed a darker shade of cream. “Great! I’ll give Claudia your number.”

She was still in high spirits when Finn dropped them off at the precinct. While Blakesley was willing to have Judy debrief him over the phone and ask dozens of clarifying questions via text, Bogo always wanted to debrief in person. Usually she might’ve complained, but given the severity of the case and the relative rarity of homicides in Zootopia, she understood the urge. He wanted to be thorough, to leave no stone unturned, and to hear each detail himself.

Usually, each detail wasn’t quite this embarrassing.

“You pretended to be a couple. You two, of all mammals.” He massaged a visible headache, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. “You realize what you’ve just signed yourselves up for, correct?”

“Yes?” Judy ventured, tentatively. “It means we’re now on a ticking clock to get Madeline Dyer’s testimony before Lyla Dyer realizes our cover story doesn’t check out.”

“No. It means that, effective immediately, I’m going to have to tell the apartment complex’s owner to act as if you _do_ live there. If that unit is rented out by someone else, it could cost you your alias and let a possible suspect go free.”

Nick raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think Lyla is involved in the murder, do you? She’s fourteen and has a necklace made out of pop tabs, boss. I don’t see her strangling someone to death and dissecting them for the heck of it.”

“Do I think she committed the crime? No. But it is our job not merely to find who pulled the metaphorical trigger, but to also implicate anyone who put Mara in front of the metaphorical gun. I don’t like how this looks – no missing mammal report for Jonah Dyer, an undocumented child, a possible hate crime and a mother who won’t speak in the presence of the missing mammal’s sister. Something about this is deeply rotten. So: I’m renting out that apartment for you, Clawhauser will arrange for some rental furniture, and I expect you to make some token appearances for however many weeks it takes to get everything you need to out of Madeline Dyer.”

Judy almost asked if that wasn’t going overboard. Almost. Then she thumped her foot a few times and thought it over; it could come in handy. If they had to work too late to catch public transport back to the City Center, or if they needed somewhere to regroup and tend to minor injuries, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a place to use. Having an address would keep Tundratown residents who saw them repeatedly from pinging them as outsiders, instead viewing them as harmless new arrivals oblivious to Tundratown’s internal politics.

“We’ll need fake names and probably fake ID to maintain it,” she said, mulling it over. “I don’t want to blow the ZPD’s budget this close to the end of the year, but it really might be our best option.”

“Thank you for seeing reason,” Bogo said, and for the life of her she couldn’t tell if she was being complimented or insulted. “Clawhauser can get you enough fake documents to pass whatever limited scrutiny you’ll encounter. I don’t expect either of you to live there full time, but I need someone in that building at least five times a week. You’re onto something, here. Don’t blow it.”

In the face of a statement that uncompromising, aware that this was going to cost the ZPD a ton of money and Bogo wouldn’t have suggested it unless it was the only option, and cognizant of the fact that this was more or less their fault, the two officers nodded.

They didn’t speak until they got back to the main lobby of the ZPD building, at which point Nick rubbed his neck and apologized. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have thrown us both under the bus that way.”

“Nick, if you hadn’t played Lyla like that we’d have lost that lead. I’m not mad you saved the case.” She reached out and touched his elbow, smile tired but genuine. “You did good out there today. I could never have come up with something on the spot like that.”

“Yeah, well. I’ve had years of practice – back when I was twelve and new to the hustle, I crashed a lot more often than I stuck the landing.” He put his hands in his pockets, tail lashing in dismay as a thought hit him. “Ugh, I’m going to have to buy a new coat, aren’t I?”

She nodded. “At least it’ll make meeting with Rust and using him as a contact easier. And we don’t have to live there full time, we just need to poke our heads in now and again. You’ll probably be warm at least half the time.”

“Oh, _half_ – thanks, Carrots, that’s truly reassuring.” He rolled his eyes affectionately. “Dumb bunny.”

“You love me and you know it,” she said flippantly, walking ahead of him to go flag down Clawhauser.

He touched his cheek, remembering the softness of her lips there, and said nothing.


	6. atunim (together, in the same place)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this chapter not particularly heavy on plot? Yes. Do I care? No. I wrote this inbetween napping and relaxing during my birthday yesterday, so it's kind of a miracle I got any work done given how much butterscotch pie I ate. And frankly, I'm just glad to have gotten something out that lays some groundwork for future plot points even if it's not action-packed. (That stuff comes later.)

Nick considered himself a fortunate mammal in that he’d only had one bad relationship in his life.

His first crush had been mutual, but the spark had faded and they’d agreed they worked better as friends. Blythe Bayfield had been a good friend, one who still kept up with him on social media, albeit from a distance. Then he’d been turned down by Gayle De Soto, which had stung until he saw her holding paws with another vixen and realized the reason for it. After that he’d had a brief romance with a girl from uptown, a wholesome little thing named Danika Ellis who broke it off after finding out about his hustling. He’d never held that against her – he could see why it worried her, and it was asking a lot of a teenage romance to weather that kind of stress.

And then there had been Fai. Fairuza Inoyatev, lovingly nicknamed The Hurricane by their classmates. She was just as money-hungry as he was, supporting a broken family like he was, and he’d adored her. She’d adored him. He'd made wedding plans in his head, half-joking suggestions about names for kits, and she'd dropped a hint in the form of mentioning her ring size once or twice. They'd been close. Her affection had been genuine.

That hadn’t stopped her from throwing him directly under the bus, and now he couldn’t set foot in the Nocturnal District ever again.

So that had stung, obviously. It was the one thing even Finn didn’t tease him about, that four year long relationship ended in a single night, and he’d like to think he’d managed not to be too damaged by it. He flirted, he dated, he took pretty vixens out to dinner and paid and walked them back to their apartments or to the bus stop, the way his momma had raised him. Nick asked for phone numbers and winked at ladies and had one or two one-night stands. He hadn’t given up on romance forever or anything dramatic and depressed like that.

But he hadn’t had any serious romantic endeavors after that. Even when he’d dated, even when things started to get serious, he found himself having a hard time really letting things get to the six-month-anniversary, let’s move in together, meet the parents phase. The idea churned his stomach, probably because he’d met Fai’s dad and she’d met his mom and they’d scoped out apartments once or twice, half-jokingly.

Now he was moving in with Judy.

 _For a case, for cover, and for all of a week or two until we get this sorted out. Don’t read too much into it, Wilde._ He shook his head, annoyed with himself, as he got back to his apartment. Her question had just caught him off guard, that was all. It had never occurred to him before just how much their running gag made it sound like they were a couple, and that realization let him wondering if she knew what it sounded like. Probably not; Judy seemed kind of oblivious to romance as a whole. _Married to her work – wonder if that bothers her parents, or if my mom is the only one hankering for grandkits._

Still, as much as she hadn’t meant anything by it, as much as this was purely business, it felt a little intimate to pick through his things in his apartment and try to figure out what he could bring to their apartment. _Their_ apartment; those words put together in that sequence was genuinely odd to think about. At one point he’d crashed with Finn, after his mom had incurred some medical expenses and rent was more than his hustling could cover. That had only been for a brief stint, though, and there was no romantic undertones to it. Finn was like a grumpy brother or know-it-all cousin more than anything. He hadn’t had to hide anything from him or worry about what he’d think.

He cared about what Judy thought of him. Like most foxes, he had some hoarding tendencies, not helped by having had to hock a lot of his worldly possessions repeatedly over the years in order to make rent or keep food on the table. So he definitely had the stuff on hand to transfer over and make a convincing set up, but what would she say if he showed up with piles of pillows to recreate a den-like feeling in the bed or a rag rug to ward off bad luck at the front door?

Moreover, what was safe to bring to an apartment people might get a glimpse of? If this killer really was the Torture Technician or not was irrelevant as far as he was concerned, because they were copying the M.O. for evidence removal and targeting. And while that meant a majority of victims wouldn’t be targeted for their mixed background, that meant the very worst of it would be reserved for them. He didn’t want someone to look into their apartment and get strong fox vibes. Nick wasn’t sure if that was something he had a choice in. Doing damage control might be impossible. Word traveled fast in city neighborhoods.

People weren’t going to be kind to a fox and a bunny sharing a one-bedroom apartment. Even someone from as far out of town as Judy had to know that.

And yet, she hadn’t objected once to the idea of staying by his side, no matter how hard it might be.

The thought drove the last of the Tundratown chill right out of him.

* * *

Judy flopped down onto her bed, staring at the ceiling.

Something she’d learned a long time ago was that the best way to confront her problems was head-on. It was easier on her sanity if she just charged ahead and did something rather than sit around and overthink it. To have to lay in wait drove her absolutely crazy – she couldn’t take not knowing something’s outcome, or not knowing just how bad something was. Judy was someone who ran towards car crashes and dove headfirst out the burrow when there was a tractor accident. She needed to take action. That was equal parts blessing and curse. On the upside, she could honestly say she hadn’t lost too many moments to indecision. On the other hand, this was a moment she kind of wished she could skip out on altogether.

There was nothing for it. If she gave this any thought whatsoever, she’d find a reason not to do this until tomorrow, and then until the next day, and then the next. With a long-suffering sigh, she pulled out her phone.

Her mother picked up after two rings. “Judy! You’re calling early. Did you just get off your shift?”

“A few minutes ago, yeah,” she confirmed. “A friend of Nick’s gave me a ride so I didn’t have to deal with commuter traffic today.”

“That’s great, dear. I know how much you hate that commute – makes me glad I don’t have to go much further than town and back.” Her smile dimmed, slightly, as she took in her daughter’s expression. “Are you okay, sweetie?”

“I am, I think. I just had a long day at work and… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, but I’m working my first homicide case.” She paused, biting her lip as she let that statement sink in. “It’s not something we’ve got a lot of leads on yet, but…”

“Oh,” Bonnie said, putting a paw to her mouth. Proud as she was of her daughter, she wasn’t exactly thrilled by the idea. “That’s quite the responsibility. Are you okay with that? Is Nick working with you?”

“Yeah, of course. Chief Bogo thinks we’re good for each other on the job, even if he’ll deny it in front of other people.” She was grateful that lying on the bed kept her ears from dropping or perking up too visibly and giving her emotions away. “I think we’ll do okay, and I know Nick will protect me, and his street smarts are already helping us out in the field. It’s just… kind of intimidating. If we don’t figure this out, it’s a lot worse than if we don’t figure out who stole a scooter or who was selling bootleg DVDs, you know?”

Her mother nodded. “I can imagine. If you want to come home for a weekend after all this, you know your father and I will be here for you.”

Judy smiled. “You just want to try and set me up with some young buck from around town.”

“Hey now, don’t knock the tried and true tradition of having a buck over for dinner. That’s how I met your father, you know.” She giggled as Judy groaned. “He was so cute, mumbling all shyly and tripping over his own feet! You know, he really thought he’d blown it once he spilled his water-”

“Mom, I’ve heard this before-”

“-and all over my new dress, too! He was so embarrassed his ears were bright red through his fur!” There was little in life as pure and sweet as Bonnie Hopps lost in the soft fog of her memories. She shook her head, snapping herself out of it. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

“I guess. Mom, can I ask you something? It’s, um, it’s work related. You’ve spent more time than I have up in the High North, so… let’s say, theoretically, a prey and predator were to move into the same apartment together. How do you think a bunch of Northerners would react?”

She looked at Judy, taking in the slight droop of her ears the bed couldn’t hide. “Why did you ask, honey?”

Judy rarely lied to her mother, but she wasn’t above some selective word choices. “A couple in an apartment Nick and I went to fit that dynamic. This killer might be targeting mammals in mixed relationships, but I don’t know how much information we’ll be able to get out of hostile neighbors, and we might need it.” She shut her eyes, sighing heavily. “I don’t want to mess this up and let a lead slip through my paws. I don’t want this killer to walk free because I didn’t navigate the interviews correctly. I don’t want to get anyone _killed_ , Mom.”

“You won’t. Listen to me, Judy… I know this must be scary. I can’t imagine how much pressure you must be under, but I know you. You’ve solved cases just as hard before, and you’ll solve this one, too. And if Bogo put you on it, it’s because he knows that, too.”

Judy’s eyes grew wet, and she swiped at them with the paw not holding the phone. “Mom…”

“I know I wasn’t the most supportive when you first graduated from the academy, but I’ve seen you do good work. You _and_ Nicholas,” Bonnie added, as an afterthought. The more months went by with Nick as Judy’s partner, the more she seemed to warm up to the idea. “You’re both doing a lot of good out there. I’m proud of you, honey.”

There was no helping it now. She was tearing up on a relatively normal call with her mom, and she was smiling while she did so. _Nick is right. Bunnies are so emotional – and I love it._ “You’re not worried about me being on a homicide case?”

“Of course I am – I’m your mother, and I’m worried sick about you. But you’re a strong girl, you have a good head on your shoulders, a good partner and a good eye for these things. I know you’ll do the right thing.” They shared a smile, which vanished as Bonnie continued, “I’m more concerned about the couple you mentioned. A predator and a prey animal are going to raise eyebrows anywhere, and, well. You remember what happened with that poor boy you…”

“Dated,” Judy finished, forcibly, as her mother tilted her head in acknowledgement. It wasn’t a displeased gesture, but it wasn’t an approving one. “You really think that kind of prejudice is still going strong? Even with Northerners down here in Zootopia? I’d kind of hoped we’d moved past that, as a society, I mean.”

“Some mammals have. I – I just don’t know, sweetie. When I was growing up, I didn’t know of any prey-predator couples,” she admitted quietly. “People up there aren’t so strict about sticking to others of their own kind, and nobody minded when your grandfather married a non-Arctic bunny, and of course their neighbors, the Harris family, they were a caribou-moose couple. You remember the Harris family, they gave you that ride back into town the time you twisted your ankle?” Judy nodded. “Their daughter married a goat, and people used to tease him about not being built for mountain life. Poor Bertrand, he really hated that after a while…”

“But no acts of violence?” she asked, grasping at straws.

“Not for prey and prey, or predator and predator.” She frowned and put a paw to her heart as Judy massaged a visible headache with one paw. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I know you want everyone to be safe. You were always the one who’d run outside to give your Dad the First-Aid Kit before he went out to do the first planting of the season. You’ve always been our little _tuglaubaa_ , trying to save the world. But I’ve never told you or your siblings lies. These mammals are in danger – but,” she said, voice warm and full to the brim with sincerity, “if anyone can keep them safe, I know it’s you. I believe in you, honey.”

“I love you, Mom,” Judy managed, voice not far above a choked-up whisper, mixed emotions swirling through her. She knew her mother meant every word. As much as she hadn’t wanted Judy to go into a dangerous field of work, she’d never been anything but supportive once she got the job.

She also knew she couldn’t tell her mother about the apartment in Tundratown. Not just because it would scare her, but because she didn’t like what she saw in her mother’s eyes when she said ‘predator and prey’.

Judy laid in bed a long time after the phone call, perfectly still, deep in thought.

* * *

Early morning in Tundratown wasn’t a great time to move things into an apartment.

The rental company truck was manned by two impressively buff muskoxen, who made quick work of things. It helped that Judy was the first to arrive and Nick had agreed that she could pick where the furniture went – and since she wasn’t actually going to be living here, she didn’t hem and haw over where to put everything. TV against the wall in the corner, couch parallel to that, entryway table over there, table and chairs in the other end of the living room/dining room hybrid. This wasn’t rocket science. The bedroom was a little trickier, since her natural farmer’s impulse was to put the bed where the light would come through in the morning and wake her up. Nick was nocturnal. She didn’t figure he’d appreciate a six-in-the-morning wakeup call every morning. Instead, she had them put the bed off to the side of the main window and asked the movers where she might go about getting some blackout curtains.

The longer-furred oxen blinked in confusion. “Do you work night shifts?”

“Both of us do, sporadically,” she explained with a nod. “I’m not sure how much I can counteract that, but the blackout curtains I brought from my old place aren’t long enough.”

“Ah. You’ll want to go to Qanibaaqani’s. It’s technically an antique store, but he gets a lot of old curtains for pretty good prices. You don’t want to overpay at a chain store when you’re only ten blocks from his place – just go down Park Street until you get to Montague Lane, then go straight down that until you hit the start of the historical district. There’s all kinds of little shops there that oughta help you get situated.”

“Thanks. And thanks for doing this so early in the morning.”

“Hey, my boss gives me extra pay when something’s this high up in a building – thank _you_ for hiring us.” They shared a good-natured smile, and soon enough, with the furniture in place, she could get to unpacking.

The problem there was that she hadn’t come to the city with much. Over the time she’d spent here she’d acquired some odds and ends, sure, but not enough to fill a properly sized apartment. This place had a bedroom, main room, kitchenette, and bathroom. Judy was willing to bet that if she’d brought all her clothes she could’ve put all of them in the closet without having to so much as glance at the dresser. If anyone got a good look into this place, it was apparent either that Nick and Judy weren’t living here full time or that they were blowing all their money on rent.

 _Well, that’s not really inaccurate,_ she mused, since if they were legitimately going to attempt to rent this, it would’ve left them with just enough left over for groceries and utilities. _So I guess if anyone asks I can just say we’re doing our best. Ugh, I hate that, though. That’s so awkward._ Judy perched atop the dining room table to put up a tapestry her mom had sent her for the Autumn Festival, one that had looked far too big in her old place but made a good accent piece here. A throw blanket on the couch and a lace tablecloth later, she found herself putting her collection of river rocks, some from here and some from home and a few from up north, on the windowsill. As much as the window by the dining room table wasn’t perfectly picturesque, the view was nice. She could see out across part of Tundratown. At this hour, dappled in sunlight, this part of town spoke to some part of her instincts, the same part that wanted to dig burrows in ice and run around without shoes.

It didn’t quite feel like home. The feeling was more like an echo of a familiar place, the same way farmer’s markets in Zootopia could evoke a sense of safety in her. Admittedly, that would’ve been more present if the place hadn’t been so empty. Judy knew it’d be nice to have somewhere to crash that wasn’t an hour commute back to her actual apartment, but she’d grown up in a reasonable, comfortable amount of clutter and this felt _off_ to her bunny sensibilities.

_(The little hideaway she and Tuvrak had dug had quickly gotten crowded. Though they’d made it big enough to stand upright in and stretch out in without touching the walls, they’d sort of nullified their own progress by bringing things into it. Discarded carpet scavenged from the dump covered the floor, sleeping bags off to the sides, and then there was everything else. Treasures, really. The soapstone carving Judy had found in the woods, an expensive but defective porcelain wolf doll, bird bones and river rocks, an honest-to-goodness phonograph that still worked that they’d snatched up for a bargain price in town, and more, every piece something that made this every bit as much a home as her grandparents’ house was._

_She had nuzzled up to Tuvrak casually as they read from an old book, next to the only lantern, and hadn't noticed the way his eyes widened or his ears flushed.)_

Nick’s soft swearing as he tried to figure out which key went to the door distracted her, and she bounded over to the front door to let him in. “Hey, Carrots. You got room for my collection of junk?”

“Depends,” she said sarcastically, gesturing to the living room. “Can you make room for that whole box in here?”

“It’ll be a tight fit, but I’ll manage.” He grinned as she stood on her tiptoes to peer into the box in question. “I’m going to be honest, I had no idea what to bring. Finn says he’ll help me move more stuff in if we need it, though.”

“That’s really cool of him.”

“Eh, it’s a long-owed favor. I helped him move his stuff out when his ex neglected to tell him she was six months behind on rent and they had to leave fast one night.”

She winced. “I assume that not telling him that is why she’s his ex.”

“Yeah, that’s one of those lies a relationship can’t really withstand. Fortunately, we’ve got rent sorted out for the next couple of months – Clawhauser really does budgeting and paperwork fast, we oughta get him some doughnuts or something to thank him.” As much as Nick liked to joke about Clawhauser not being fast in the traditional sense, he could work a computer like an otter swam, quick and steady. He looked over at her, mind back to the subject of work. “You think we’ll be able to get anything usable out of the neighbors here?”

“I don’t know. Bogo’s right, though, something here stinks. I can’t imagine what’s going on with the Dyers – I can’t imagine anything that might make a mammal not report their child missing.” That Mrs. Dyer was so nervous around her own child made Judy’s fur bristle, the way it always had when she was certain she wasn’t alone in the fields. “This will go quicker once we’ve interviewed Mrs. Dyer. But we’ll definitely look into other mammals here. Someone might’ve seen something.”

She wasn’t sure how much Nick would be able to get out of people here. He was obviously non-northern, and while she’d claimed to Lyla that Nick had _qianbaq_ heritage two generations back, that might not help much. He didn’t look it. It might keep him from being interrogated thoroughly, but they really needed to tread lightly here. Their alibis were fragile and liable to fall apart under intense scrutiny. _If he were fluent, it’d be easier to convince everyone we’re just here to live where we’re more comfortable. But… I’m a cop, not a teacher. I don’t know how to teach anyone a whole language._ I _barely learned it and it took a lot of concentrated effort over a lot of years._

“Carrots.” Nick put a paw on her shoulder, smiling softly down at her. “We’ll get through this. I promise.”

He made it sound so easy that she wanted to believe him, so she did. “Thanks, Piberius.”

A knock on the front door, which they belatedly realized had been left ajar, startled them out of having a moment. An Arctic hare stood there, a casserole in one paw, a tentative smile on her face. She looked to be around Judy’s age, albeit shorter, with dark blue eyes rimmed with winged eyeliner. Her nose was small and light pink, almost peach, her fur thick and white but with an ombre of silver on the ears and paws. Judy smiled, and she gingerly took a step inside.

“Palagivsik,” she said brightly, holding out the glass dish to Judy. “I’m Mercy, Mercy Tabium. I live in 17-3, just across the hall. I saw the movers and I thought I’d put something together for you.”

“Nakurmiikpin.” Judy took the casserole gratefully, inhaling deeply. “It smells amazing! Oh, I’m Unaqai,” and she was proud of herself for making that sound natural, “and this is Piberius, my boyfriend.”

Mercy’s eyes widened slightly, and her brow furrowed slightly for a second, but then she blinked hard and pushed past whatever her initial reaction was. “Nice to meet you both. I guess this rent’s easier to manage if you split it, huh?”

Nick chuckled and extended his paw for her to shake. She took it without hesitation. “Yeah, that’s for sure. You must be working a pretty good job to afford it all by yourself. Good on you.”

“Oh, I’m just a cook,” she said, flattered by the unexpected praise. “I’m the co-manager at Grotsky’s.”

“The catering company?” Nick raised both eyebrows, either genuinely impressed or mimicking it so perfectly even Judy couldn’t call his bluff. “Well, no wonder it smells so good. And you had, what, twenty minutes to put it together? Incredible. I can barely make soup.”

Judy set the casserole on the counter of the kitchenette, took the lid off and inhaled deeply. “We might just have to tear into this now. Neither of us had time to grab breakfast yet.”

“You must work crazy hours,” Mercy observed, shaking her head sympathetically, making eye contact with Judy. “I wish I could stay and talk more – I’d love to get to know you two better, especially if your boyfriend’s going to keep showering me in compliments. But I actually have to get to work pretty quick. I just wanted to say hi before I did. I know not everyone here is the most friendly, but if you need anything, you can always knock on my door, or on Mr. Pine’s over at 17-8. We’ll help you out.”

“Oh, I’m sure people here are fine,” Judy said, voice forcibly light and deceptively casual. “We ran into someone from one of the top floors, Mrs… Dyer, I think it was? And she was pretty nice. And the top floor is all squirrels, and they’re kind of legendary back in Avva Mamaixaq for their hospitality.”

She was kind of proud of herself for dropping in part of her new backstory in the same breath as the name she wanted information on. _Maybe I’m not entirely hopeless at undercover work after all._

“Well, yeah, _Mrs._ Dyer is fine, but her daughter…” Mercy’s nose crinkled in distaste, a hint of teeth showing under her lips for a second. “She won’t want you here. Don’t take anything she has to say to heart, but don’t argue with her, either. That kid – ugh, I shouldn’t gossip about her. She’s a teenager,” and it sounded like Mercy was trying to convince _herself_ of this, “she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’ll stop being so unbearable as she gets older.”

“I don’t know,” Nick mused, handing Judy a plate for the food, “I’ve been roughly this unbearable since I was twelve.”

Mercy snorted in sync with Judy, who playfully batted at his shoulder. The smile faded from the Arctic hare’s face rather quickly. “The girl’s a taxonomy purist. Didn’t used to be, but sometime around the Summer Solstice she started running with a different crowd, and now she’s full up on ideas and thoughts and has no filter about sharing ‘em, when she’s in a mood. Back when her brother was around he helped keep her more mellowed out.”

Judy blinked, innocently. “And then her brother went to college?”

“No, he moved out at the wrong time of year for that. I don’t know what happened there,” she shrugged, tugging at her ear semi-nervously. “If he left to get away from her nonsense, I don’t blame him. She’s full of herself and full of hate, these days. And with you two being who you are, even without factoring in that you’re dating each other… you don’t want to end up in the same room as that kid. Her mom’s great, though,” she brightened up, changing the topic to something lighter. “Mrs. Dyer is a really kind woman. Gave me the spare mattress right out of her guest room the night I moved in.” She glanced around the still very empty apartment. “Maybe she’ll have something for you, too. Don’t try paying her back, she won’t hear of it.”

“Sounds like my mom,” Judy said, real fondness in her voice. “I think every little neighborhood needs to have someone like that in it.”

“And someone like you,” Nick added. He’d already taken a bite of the food, and gave the Arctic hare a look of pure gratitude. “This is amazing. If I could cook, I’d offer to make you something in kind, but, well. Poisoning the neighbors probably won’t make me any friends, and that’s about all I can reliably do.”

Mercy rolled her eyes, waving a paw at him. “Oh, come on, you can’t be _that_ bad. You just need practice! I’ll give you one of my old cookbooks later, something aimed at non-professionals. You two will need it if you’re going to be living together now.”

“Nakurmiimmarialuk.” She took her own first bite, and shut her eyes. “Tastes almost as good as my grandma’s – no wonder you work in catering.”

“Ugh, you’re both too sweet to deal with,” Mercy chuckled, though she looked pleased regardless as she turned to go. “I guess that makes you perfect for each other.”

“I’d like to think so.” Nick’s gaze softened as he took in the sight of Judy over-savor another bite, before he remembered they had company over and he straightened up. “Thanks for the food. Qakugulupin.”

“Qakuguluvsik.” She nodded to them in parting, and closed the door behind her.

Judy waited until she couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore to whip around and stare at Nick, slack-jawed. “You said _goodbye_.”

He rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Yes, _Unaqai_ , I know how to say goodbye to someone. Probably. I can’t promise I can remember the version for three people or the formal word, but I did some studying last night. I can now say hello, goodbye, thank you, and ‘this obnoxious rabbit is with me’.”

“What dialect did you learn those words in?”

Silence. Slowly, Nick stopped chewing.

“…you don’t know, do you?” Somehow, that didn’t surprise her. “Let me guess, the internet didn’t tell you.”

“…I’m doing the best I can, here.” He was surprised by Judy briefly pressing her head to his side, a soft nuzzle he wasn’t sure how to process.

“I know. I know you are. And I appreciate it. This whole thing, being here, going undercover, working our first homicide… it’s all vaguely terrifying, but it’s easier to do knowing I’ve got you here along for the ride.” Her eyes were truly violet in the bright morning light, suddenly the most captivating thing he’d ever seen, and he had to force himself to look away.

“Sentimental bunny.” A pause, and then, carefully: “Tungujuangajuq. That’s ‘purple’, right?”

It was rare for Nick to admit he didn’t know something, and rare still for him to ask her for clarification. She sensed, in that moment, a strange vulnerability in him, in the act of opening up. “Tungujuaq is ‘purple’. Tungujuanga is ‘you are purple’. Tungujuangajuq is ‘that is purple’.”

“Does every color work that way?” He didn’t sound intimidated by it. Nick Wilde wasn’t one to turn down a challenge. If the internet and the world as a whole said he couldn’t learn it, then so what? Everyone had expected him to drop out of school, too, and he’d graduated on time and with good grades. More than that, though, if Judy wasn’t going to talk down to him, well, that made wanting to learn a hell of a lot easier.

“ _Everything_ works that way. Tall, short, purple, green, fast, slow, amazing, dull.” She scooped up another spoonful of casserole, blowing at the steaming egg noodles and crushed, butter fried cracker crust. “You’ll pick it up faster if you read and watch TV in it. That’s part of what I did to get good at it.”

“What’s the word for amazing?”

“Quvibusruk.”

“Quvibusrujuanga, Carrots.”


	7. quliaqtuaqtuq (to tell a true story, to share a life experience)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, most of this chapter was written a day after the last, and then my dumb ass felt the need to wait until I got another Inuktitut dictionary so I could double-check my word choices, which means that this entire thing has been done and could've been published earlier had I not felt the need to triple-check the various words for 'love' across dialects. Would any of you have noticed or cared if I botched it? No. Would you have said something if you did? Also probably no. But *I* would have noticed, cared, and kicked myself about it, so. Here we are, behind schedule once again.
> 
> Also, my brother, upon leafing through said dictionary, pointed out that if you're not familiar with Inuit languages it's not clear how any of this is pronounced, so... IDK, let me know if y'all want a pronunciation guide? Other than 'j' making a 'y' sound a lot of the time, I feel like it's possible to sound out a lot of this. But I'm a nerd who's got six Duolingo courses going and a bookshelf of foreign language books by my desk, so. That might just be me being wildly out of touch with reality.

_Water was a sacred thing to some bunnies, the ones who still abided by the old stories and believed in the old faith._

_Granted, it was also part of a lot of other faiths and cultures, so Judy was pretty sure she wasn’t a weirdo for finding something magical about the rivers and creeks that crisscrossed the landscape of the High North. As much as she loved the farm, the irrigation channels dug into the land long ago meant the river was very far from her home. Up in the north, she and her brothers and sisters and cousins tumbled out onto the smooth ice to skate, slide, and generally make fools of themselves. It was the highlight of the trips, really. They would always return to their grandparents’ house coated in snow and fresh bruises from falling multiple times. There would be some squabbling as everyone tried to get a hot shower in before dinner, where, bundled up in cozy sweaters and thick sweatpants, they would sit down at the long table that vivisected the living room to eat bowls of hot soup and fresh bread._

_Judy was more enamored with the rivers than most. The smooth ice formed forbidden paths that cut into the deepest parts of the forest, small openings leading up and onwards into shadowy places she couldn’t quite see. To her it was a siren call. She wanted,_ needed _to see what lay beyond the thickets of clawlike bushes and dead trees, past the flat marshlands where the grass lay perfectly preserved and sometimes visible under thick ice, past the fluorescent pink and orange plastic ties on trees that marked property lines. She wanted to see everything. Judy could never be happy staying in one place, not when the rest of the world was right there, just one dash away for whoever was brave enough (or foolish enough) to go see it._

_Curiosity was a vice and virtue at the same time. Sometimes it led to the dissension of mammals from the world of the sky down to Earth, and sometimes it led to the creation of ghosts when mammals wandered too far from their body as spirits. Every signal Judy ever got on this topic was mixed: look before you leap, but he who hesitates is lost. You miss every chance you don’t take, but think of the consequences. There are things we’re not meant to know, but always ask why._

_Settle, her parents told her, but also be happy. She couldn’t do both._

_She was always someone who would chase the frozen road of the river up towards the divide between the hills and into the forest, kicking through the underbrush until she thrashed free of the brambles and thorns, stumbling forward onward northward just to see what lay there._

_It was this way that she found the river led clear to Tuvrak’s house, where she could meet him before the crack of dawn, knocking on the back door near his room to wake him up. Every time he grumbled she was an obnoxious morning person and it was too early. Every time, all was instantly forgiven as soon as she pitched an idea to him for the day’s adventure: “Do you want to go to the old ski lodge?” “Let’s go see the marshland graveyard!” “You said you’d show me how to get into the junkyard.”_

_Either his parents didn’t know or they had decided trespassing was the least of trouble young kits in the countryside could get up to. Judy and Tuvrak never took anything except rocks, unless it was something from the junkyard. They broke no doors, tipped over zero tombstones, left no trace of their adventures beyond pawprints that the whirling wind coated in snow and dust after they left. Sometimes they didn’t go anywhere in particular, just further upriver, talking or walking in companionable silence. He never really seemed to want to venture as deep in as she did, but he followed her faithfully, like the moon god trailed behind the sun goddess, always playing catch up, always unfaltering in loyalty._

_Of course, in mythology, the moon and sun were brother and sister, but more importantly, they drew strength from one another when they met. The eclipse was the moment they caught up to each other and embraced. From the sight of the other they could find the will to get up and take to the sky again._

_Judy was the sun, light-furred and bright-eyed and optimistic. She wanted to be the sun, had always admired her more than any other mythological figure, and had somehow accidentally acquired the sun goddess’ complete obliviousness to romance along the way. When they were fourteen and she hauled Tuvrak out of the house earlier than ever, to go further upriver than they ever had before, she wanted to watch the eclipse from the old watchtower. It would be three hours of walking over mid-spring ice, which even a southerner like her knew could possibly break and give out underneath them. A good friend would’ve talked her out of it. A better friend would’ve accompanied her anyway out of concern._

_Her best friend just nuzzled her fondly, exasperated, and went with her without question._

_Even the sturdy and independent sun needed someone else, after all._

* * *

“So, ‘H’ only exists in four words?”

“Yes.” Judy guided him by the paw down a corner, following directions she’d gotten earlier out of their movers. “The _haluu_ words, and _hamalakut_.”

“And those words mean…?” his confidence in learning this was waning as they got deeper into town, where the snippets of conversation that he caught on the street were sometimes in Ruski, sometimes Standard, and often Uqallak. _Not a single fox here, nevermind either of our languages. What, did they all get chased out of this part of town?_

“ _Haluugikpin, haluugivsik,_ and _haluugivsi_ are ways of saying hello people use in the Suluun dialect, and _hamalakut_ is like ‘state’ or ‘district’. It's a mangling of the beaver word 'hamlet'.” Biting her lip for a moment, she asked, tentatively, “I – if, um, if I wanted to learn a little Vulpine, would you… would you teach me?”

Nick blinked at her in confusion. “Carrots, I’m _not_ qualified to be a teacher. And when would you ever use that, anyway? Most foxes live in the Nocturnal District, and Bogo may be open-minded but the sun will freeze over before he lets a diurnal mammal like you work that beat.”

“Nick, Malina – the sun – _did_ freeze solid once,” she pointed out, mostly to be contrary and partially because she didn’t like having to take ‘no’ for an answer.

_(“And Malina the golden rabbit, the determination, the sun, did so love all mammals that she threw herself into the ocean for Tulok, the lone white wolf, the liar, the mortal, to haul him back up before the ice trapped him beneath.” Judy’s grandmother had a storyteller’s gift for slipping into an old-fashioned way of speaking for key bits, and missed the way Judy’s head cocked at the word choice._

_Piqpaksriruq was a non-romantic form of the word love. There was love, and then there was_ love _, and there was a way to love predators in your life, and a way they shouldn’t be loved._ But that’s okay, _she told herself._ Tuvrak’s just a bunny, at this point. It’s fine. It’s not like he’s really a predator – he’s one of us. _)_

The fox raised an eyebrow at her, wholly unfamiliar with rabbit mythology. “Yeah, well, two things: one, that sounds apocalyptic out of context, and two, you still didn’t answer my question. When would you ever need it?”

“Maybe never.” Judy shrugged, undeterred. “But it’s not fair that you have to learn so much vocabulary for this and I don’t even know how to say ‘hi’ in Vulpine.”

He studied her face, the willfulness in her expression, and reluctantly caved. “…it’s _heus_.”

“ _Heus_. For every hello? There aren’t any other variations?”

“For most hellos,” he confirmed as she peered at street signs, trying to make sure they hadn’t gotten off track. “You know, Finn might be willing to teach you. He’s been tutoring his sister basically since that kit was old enough to understand words. And he speaks the more common dialect anyway.” He grinned as Judy made an ‘aww’ sound. _Finn is going to kill me, but it’ll be hilarious when she asks him about it, so screw it. Worth it._

The hunt for what their meager budgets could afford and what they absolutely needed was tedious. They probably needed to get blankets on the bed, if nothing else – there was no way their cover could work if they tried to claim they were too poor to have blankets while also earning enough to make rent. Clawhauser had arranged for furniture moved in, but not proper blackout curtains. They got as much as they could feasibly carry on foot and nothing more, much as Judy wanted to steal a particularly soft goose-down stuffed couch they found, which Nick didn’t dare sit on for fear of dropping right back off to sleep. Judy nearly dropped off herself, before he shook her awake. Diurnal or not, the late nights of paperwork coupled with early morning scavenging wasn’t doing her any good. He wondered, privately, if she was sleeping alright.

Nick was fairly certain he was going to sleep like a rock that night. The walk back, in the bitter cold with wind lashing at his exposed tail, was as close to Hell as he ever wanted to come. He could practically feel the energy leaving his body, absorbed by the snow. Judy seemed to instinctively flatten her ears to the back of her head a second before the wind hit. He had no such instincts. She might’ve claimed he had some great-great grandparent with some Arctic fox heritage, but firstly, that was a lie, and secondly, even if it weren’t, he was sure he’d hate it here. _Cold, I can deal with. Wind this loud and obnoxious should be outlawed._ Hauling things back to their apartment didn’t help matters; by the time they got into the apartment building his paws were aching and his tail was stinging and tingling all over, whipped by the wind into a puffball of fluffy fur.

“Qisuk!” the tiny Siberian flying squirrel kit in the elevator with them cheered, making grabby hands for Nick’s tail. He automatically lowered it to the ground so the little one could touch it. “Qisuktuq!”

“He thinks it’s a cloud,” Judy informed him, and he laughed, impossibly charmed by the comparison, while the toddler’s father sighed wearily.

“Sorry – Piotr is a very friendly child,” the red squirrel apologized, tugging his son away from Nick. “He doesn’t know his own strength, so sometimes he tugs tufts of fur right out. He means well, though.”

“I’m sure he does,” Nick said, nodding. “Don’t worry, I’ve kitsat enough not to take it personally. Want me to hit the button up here for you?”

“That’d be great, thanks. The lower control panel’s buttons tend to stick, sometimes.” The squirrel smiled at them as he gathered his son up into his arms, a backpack full of groceries on his back. “I’m Valor. I live up in the rodent levels, in 29-9, with my wife Vera and my step-kits, Mary and Svetlana.”

“I’m Unaqai, and this is Piberius,” Judy said, taking Nick’s paw and squeezing it so that she wouldn’t have to keep saying ‘my boyfriend’, instead trying to look natural and let it be implied. “We just moved into 17-4. It seems like a nice neighborhood so far.”

Valor nodded, rubbing his son’s back as the tiny squirrel kit, who still eyed Nick’s tail with obvious interest. “Oh, we’re all pretty friendly around here. Well, Mrs. Summers will rant about how things were better back in her day at you, but don’t pay that any mind. She’s just lost in nostalgia some days.”

“Eh, it happens.” Nick shrugged as the elevator slowly ascended. “Who’s to say we won’t get like that too, once we get older?”

“Bite your tongue,” his alleged girlfriend said, mock-shuddering. Piotr giggled when she stuck her tongue out, so she did it again, eliciting happy squeak-giggles. “Utuqqaruqqa?”

“Pifasut!” Piotr answered, proudly.

Valor shook his head and sighed. “He’s actually _two_ , but he’s close enough to three that he’s just decided to tell everyone that, now.”

“I admire his confidence,” Nick deadpanned, and they bid the father and son goodbye as they got off, stuff en tow, on their floor. He waited until the elevator went up to turn to Judy and ask, “You remember how old my alias is supposed to be, right?”

“Yes, I do – I memorized everything last night. You need to stop worrying so much. I keep all my siblings’ birthdays, anniversaries and big moments straight in my head, I can remember how old you are.”

“Sorry, sorry. I just – this is a lot of change, you know? I wasn’t expecting my whole life to do a one-eighty the day I met you.” He set his bags down to get the door, opening it for Judy and aware, suddenly, of how much that action mirrored what his father had always done for his mother. “I can’t believe you’ve got me acting all domestic, Carrots. My mom never managed that, and she spent almost two decades trying. I’m impressed.”

“’Almost two decades’? So she gave up, at some point?”

“There may have been an incident with laundry, hand soap, and a homemade battery. Until the statue of limitations passes, though, well. You didn’t hear it from me.” And on this topic, he was fairly sure Finn wouldn’t spill the beans. As much as he enjoyed seeing Nick flustered and loved joking around with Judy, Finn knew better than to implicate his friend in any semi-illegal activity. _It was an accident. Paw to God, I wouldn’t have ever wrecked our place on purpose. Not that Bogo would care… ugh, him holding that over my head sounds worse than being arrested. At least jail_ ends _at some point._

Judy’s phone buzzed, the timer she’d set reminding her that she needed to get going. “I’ve gotta go meet Mrs. Dyer. I think I know the way to Excelsior Street, but I’ve got the Poodle Maps pulled up just in case.”

He waved a paw dismissively at her. “Go on, then. I’ll get everything set up and then go downtown, see what Blakesley wants me to do. And I’ll look into the friendlier neighbors here, see if I can get anything out of them.”

“Okay. I’ll pick up some food on the way back, so our fridge isn’t just a casserole and a can of beans. Anything you want in particular?” _I sound like Mom before she goes to the store_ , she noted to herself, unsure what to feel about that.

“Maybe some amaranth, and some bread? And coffee, obviously. The basics, while we figure out how long we’re actually going to be down here.”

“Amaranth, bread and coffee. Got it!” Judy gave him a brief, one-armed hug before turning to leave. “See you later!”

“See you soon too, sweetheart.” He grinned as he watched her bounce off towards the elevator, eager, ready and willing to dive into the questioning stage of proceedings. This was some of the hardest work in an investigation, but she didn’t so much as glance back at him or hesitate for even a split second at the door. Once upon a time, he’d been that fearless. Sometimes, in her presence, he regained that same dauntless spirit. _Mom and Finn are right. Judy’s good for me. Hopefully, I’m good for her, too._

It wasn’t until midway through making the bed that he realized he’d called her _sweetheart_.

Thankfully, no one was around to hear his embarrassed squeak.

* * *

“Thank you for meeting with me, Mrs. Dyer. I know this whole situation is a little strange.”

“It’s not something either of us can control,” the wolverine said, smiling very briefly as she added, “and please, call me Maddie. Almost everyone does.”

“You can call me Judy, then. I don’t want this to feel like a formal inquisition, because that’s not what I want it to be. That’s not what I got into this line of work to do – I want to help people.”

In spite of the circumstances, Maddie nodded once. “I don’t doubt it. You’re going through an awful lot of trouble, coming down here from Precinct One just to look into Jonah. Well, Jonah and Mara, I assume?”

Judy nodded. “Someone botched the filing on Mara, so I thought that might be the case for Jonah, too. That’s why I’m here – looking into things in person means I’ll get all the details and I _promise_ you, we’re going to get everything recorded correctly now. I take missing mammal cases seriously.”

Maddie nodded. She looked tired, probably with dark circles under her eyes, though the makeup covered it up well enough that all the rabbit could see was the slight discoloration of the blend line. Judy had never mastered the art of using foundation on herself; applying the cream in a way that didn’t clump or matt down her fur was beyond her. She had to have a small group of her sisters help her look nice for her high school graduation, and had already forgotten anything she might’ve learned from the experience. It seemed pointless to her. Then again, Judy hadn’t ever needed to look okay as badly as Maddie Dyer did. Necessity might’ve given her a deft paw for such things.

“Jonah admired you, you know. He watched the news closely, and since my baby wanted to be a lawyer, well, you can imagine what a rabbit on the police force meant to him.” She looked around the café she’d insisted was a safe meeting place, at the mix of mammals there. “If you could make it as a cop, maybe he could make it as a predator and a lawyer – and make it _here_ , not over in a majority predator neighborhood.”

“I’m surprised Lyla didn’t recognize me, then, if her brother was watching the news on the Mammal Inclusion Initiative that closely.”

“Oh, Lyla never kept up with that. She’s my… less positive child, I suppose is the best way to say it. Huddled up with her watercolor palette and moody music, that one; Lord knows I love her, but I don’t get her. Of course,” Mrs. Dyer’s shoulders slumped, “I can’t help but think her friends made a bad situation worse. She was always pessimistic, but they brought out the worst in her.”

Judy’s ears drooped slightly. “Yeah, I know what that’s like. As many siblings as I have, there’s always a black dove in the family somewhere. And the teenage years aren’t really anyone’s best years, are they?”

“No, I suppose they aren’t. I’ve tried to be a better mother to my kits than my mother was to me; I don’t spank or scratch my kits, I don’t raise my voice, and I’ve never told them that they shouldn’t follow their dreams just based on their species. My parents moved to Zootopia hoping it could be a place without prejudice. I wanted my kits to grow up without any of that old school toxicity in their heads. If Jonah wanted to be a lawyer, then by God, he was going to be a lawyer. And if Lyla wants to go to art school, then that’s what she’ll do. I try to be supportive. I… I don’t know what I did wrong.” She ran a paw through her fur, claws dragging up the side of her face hard enough to help her focus. It was a motion Judy recognized from her own mother’s sleepless nights worrying about her kits and grandkits. “I did everything I could.”

“I know you did,” Judy said firmly, putting a paw over Mrs. Dyer’s on the table and meeting her eyes. “Everyone I meet has nothing but good things to say about you.”

“And what do they say about my husband?”

The rabbit searched the recesses of her memory. “Not much, really? He’s on the name of the mail box for your unit, but I don’t think I’ve heard anything about him beyond him existing.”

“Francis is a good man. I love him, and he loves me, even though most of our friends still scratch their heads trying to make sense of it. He’s from richer stock than my family, High Northern, too, and God, Judy, if you heard him sing in church you’d weep, he’s so _talented_ – but he has one flaw, and that’s work. Have you heard of Apaira?”

Judy’s ears dropped flat. “I’ve never been there, but I used to spend time with family in Avva Mamaixaq. My mom’s half of the family used to be miners, back in the day, and Apaira… yeah, they talked about it, even years later. It was tragic.”

“It’s more than just tragic, it’s why Francis is like he is – his father and uncle both died in that cave in, and after that it fell to him to take care of the family. Ever since he was barely out of kithood, he’s been working, and he’s done amazing things. He founded the Pan-Continental Miner’s Union, brought all the little unions together, helped so many people, and…” Maddie sighed, fiddling with her necklace. “Lyla adores him and hates him at the same time. She doesn’t see why a wolverine should be concerned with the welfare of rodent mica miners in the south or lemming coal miners to the west, and she despises that he’s gone so often, but she also once clawed a bear in the mouth for saying her dad doesn’t have a ‘real’ job.”

“So I imagine that makes her relationship with her more taxonomist-minded friends a lot harder, huh?” she asked, and could tell from the woman’s flinch that she’d struck a nerve. “Sorry. I’m not trying to rub any of this in. But I need as much insight into your family as you can give me so I can look into Jonah properly. I don’t want to end up not finding him just because I didn’t want to ask the hard questions.”

The wolverine nodded weakly, gazing into her reflection in the coffee rather than at Judy. “I know. You’re only trying to do your job, but God, Judy, it’s so _hard_ , seeing my little girl get all mixed up with these predator supremacists and separatists. She’s so moody these days, and she and Jonah used to tease each other and have snowball fights and play video games and now – and now she’s just _so angry_ all the time! It’s like I don’t even know her anymore!”

It was unprofessional, but Judy got out of her seat and put a paw on the woman’s back. Other café patrons were either too busy with the morning rush to notice or too polite to stare, for the most part, but the few that glanced their way got a sharp look of reproach from Judy. For all they knew, the two were old friends just talking about family matters – if they could even make out a word they said over the din of voices here. Tucked away into a tiny corner table, Judy almost felt like some distant cousin of the poor mammal beside her who was trying so valiantly not to cry. She’d never been the bunny anyone turned to for this kind of advice. Judy was at her best offering quiet support instead, and she tried to do that now like she would for any of her cousins, siblings or aunts and uncles. Sometimes people just needed to be heard.

“I’m so sorry,” she said quietly. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through. Is that why you didn’t file a missing mammal report? You didn’t want to make Lyla angrier?”

“I didn’t want her to think I suspected her, because if I’m wrong, God, what kind of awful person am I, to think my little girl might hurt my little boy? But if I’m right, then… then it’s important that she not know I suspected anything, right? So that she wouldn’t get rid of any evidence, and now you’ll be able to find Jonah.”

The weight of that sentence, that responsibility, settled onto Judy with breathtaking finality. She didn’t want to offer her false hope, but she wouldn’t crush the woman’s dreams, either. “That’s the plan, yes. We’re going to look into this as thoroughly as we can, especially considering it’s tied to another case.” She patted the teary-eyed mother on the shoulder, voice soft and low. “I just don’t understand why you couldn’t have gotten a report filed without her knowing. She’s fourteen – angry or not, she can’t be everywhere at once, right?”

“…there’s somebody in the Tundratown PD, someone who runs in the same crowds, messing with the paperwork.” She threw her coffee back like a shot, steeled herself, took a deep breath, and explained. “I listen in on her when she talks to her friends on Muzzle Time, and when she’s on the phone. There’s someone in there who’s been keeping them out of trouble. If I’d filed a report after Lyla and Jonah fought that night and he stormed off, it would’ve just been thrown out, and she would’ve – I don’t know what she would’ve done. I know she was glued to her phone the rest of the night. I kind of wanted to think she was texting him, saying she was sorry, but she might’ve been venting to her friends or telling them to keep an eye out for him or who knows what. All I know is she told him she’d rather have no brother at all than one who was going to live in a bear neighborhood with an ugly baby. ‘I wish you would just disappear’, she told him. ‘How am I going to go to school now? You’re embarrassing the whole family.’”

“So… she doesn’t know your family has bear heritage, then.” Judy swallowed, intensely uneasy with the implications of that. _I have to make sure she doesn’t find out. A kit tangled up in extremist circles might be in real danger if the word got out._ “The Thompsons said it was a while back in the family tree?”

“It is, and no, she doesn’t know. We thought it might be easier on the kits not to know, but, well, Emily came out all dark and thick-furred, and I had to explain it to Jonah.” She ducked her head, shame-faced, twisting the hem of her cardigan in her paws. “He was already taking classes in the bear dialect of Uqallakan, worked with some back when he did construction work this summer, and he didn’t care. My boy’s always been focused on the future, not the past. Mara didn’t care either. I thought it was going to be okay. Then Lyla saw Em and she and Jonah got into the worst fight of their lives, and when he went out for a walk to clear his head, he never came back. Mara went missing six days later – God, this is a mess. This is just such a nightmare… how did everything go so _wrong_?”

 _Jonah goes missing, doubling Mara’s reasons to look into the criminal underbelly here. She goes missing, and the paperwork ‘happens’ to be botched to omit almost all the information we’d need to do a proper investigation. Nick’s right, Lyla’s too young and too much of a kit to pull off a murder – but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have friends who aren’t._ The rabbit swallowed back a lump of mixed emotions and inhaled, holding her head up high and catching Mrs. Dyer’s gaze.

“I don’t know. But I’m going to get to the bottom of this, Maddie. I’m going to bring your boy home, no matter what it takes, and that’s a promise.” She meant it, every word and every syllable. Judy Hopps was not scared of some taxonomist snobs with knives and spray paint – the only thing she was afraid of was what it might do to this woman to never get to see her beloved baby boy again. She would bring him home, come hills or high water.

Whether he would be alive or in a body bag for that, she wasn’t sure.

* * *

_Mrs. Dyer was not the first time someone had suddenly told Judy all their life secrets, their pain and problems and quiet agonies._

_Things had obviously changed with Tuvrak from the time she’d last seen him. Gone was the happy rabbit who’d followed her up the rivers into the depths of the wilderness without a care in the world. He had become scared of the world in a way he hadn’t been since that first year they met. His eyes were different. She could see the pain and the fear in them. Tuvrak no longer wanted to set foot in town, ears perpetually drooping, his entire demeanor changed almost to the point of being unrecognizable._

_She only realized then that she loved him. She loved his compassion, his ability to try to be optimistic even while dealing with anxiety, his refusal to take out his pain on the world, the integrity and honesty that set him apart from anyone else she’d ever known. Judy loved sledding with him, pressed close on one wooden sled, paw in paw, zipping past the world. When she coaxed a smile out of him it felt like the sun breaking through the clouds. Huddling with him in the burrow felt like home. And she may have only been sixteen, but she was pretty sure this was love._

_“I’ll protect you,” Judy told him one day, as they lay curled up together in the burrow they’d dug. “I don’t know what they did, but I’ll keep you safe every day that I’m here. I love you. And that’s what love is, right? Protecting and caring and hanging out.”_

_At the word ‘love’, his whole expression changed. Not_ pikpaqsriruq, _familial love, friend love, but_ piviuttaqqun _, marriage type love. Forever-love. He curled up into a tighter ball, smaller than she’d ever seen him, paws a little shaky. “You promise you’ll love me? No matter what?”_

_“Of course. I know you, and the you I know is the nicest guy I’ve ever met.” She ran a paw over the long tuft of fur atop his head, smile gentle, eyes warm. “I’m just sorry it took me so long to figure this out.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes, so she pressed her head to his, nose-to-nose. “Tuvrak, please. Please believe me.”_

_“I don’t think you’d still want to be with me if… if you knew what happened while you were away.”_

_Her eyes were like the sunrise, violet and warm and understanding. “I will. I promise.”_

_Judy had the raw confidence to make him believe it. She said it with such conviction that he found himself unable to refute her. Something about her always struck him as steadfast in a way no one else ever was; she had a dream she was chasing, she gave her word and meant it, and she was endlessly, hopelessly optimistic. He couldn’t help falling in love with her. Tuvrak had been in love with her since before he’d even realized he had a crush on her. Now that they’d both realized what they were feeling and that it was miraculously mutual, he found it impossible to withhold anything from her._

_He told her everything, from the start of Grace’s following him after school to the way her friends were making his life hell on Earth at school every day to how she started looking for excuses to goad him into getting angry. She listened to every word without once doubting him. He told her everything, increasingly shaky and rambling as he began to cry, told her about them pretending to make nice with him, about her brother Kenny playing mediator, trying to keep the peace. About how Kenny hadn’t known that it was all an act, that Grace was still mad at him just for existing, that Kenny wasn’t there that night at the bonfire party in the forest because Kenny didn’t drink and Tuvrak didn’t drink either most of the time, so he didn’t know if they’d put something in his drink or not but the next thing he knew…_

_His stomach and chest were burned, furless where the scarring had occurred, soft pink flesh that Judy was almost afraid to touch. Grace said he tripped and fell into the fire. Grace said her cellphone didn’t have a charge and that’s why she hadn’t called an ambulance._

_Grace was a filthy liar with the face of an angel and an important dad and she thought those things would protect her forever._

_Judy was going to make damn certain it didn’t._


	8. akigabaaqattaqtuq ((continuing; ongoing)) to support/carry one another)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Judy flashback this chapter. I contemplated it, but it didn't really fit, and fits better with the next chapter, wherein I can tie it into other events in the plot thematically.
> 
> Tiny linguistic note: Malina Siqieiq is called many things in many different Inuit dialects, usually Malina + whatever the local word for sun is. I picked one because alternating between Siqieiq, Siqiniq, Iqniq, Hinieiq, etc. I don't favor a particular dialect, I'm just aiming for consistency in names. That's also why the moon god is going to be continually referred to as Ixumutun, because his name varies a lot more wildly than his sister's does - Ixumutun, Igaluk, Aninngaq, Taqqiq, Tugigaq, etc. I went with Ixumutun because it has a basis in the root word ixumun, meaning truth, which felt thematically appropriate for a story focusing on crime and lies and buried truths.
> 
> TL;DR I continue to be a language nerd, and I'm sorry there's not a lot of action in this chapter. That's coming up soon, I promise. This is the fluff before the storm. (I hope the Geneva convention doesn't cover my torturing of metaphors.)

Blakesley wasn’t merely angry, he was furious.

The unsettling part was that he outwardly showed no sign of anger in the traditional sense, his breathing even and his head held high, but his eyes were completely devoid of expression and his face was a careful blank, purposefully composed. Only his tail, lashing furiously about in direct contradiction to the rest of him, hinted at just how bad this was. Malitsoh had seen him get this agitated before. It always ended in firing, speeches to someone about them being a burden to the force, to Zootopia and to sentient life, and the promotion of whoever it was who blew the whistle on whatever was going on.

A lot of mammals had held the position of Tundratown PD chief. A lot of them gave up, same as the Nocturnal District, for reasons varying from having crossed the wrong crime family to being burnt out to being unable to deal with the impenetrable language barrier. Blakesley was different. He was determined to outlast everyone and everything this job could throw at him. Maybe down in the Nocturnal District, where Chief Devin was more than willing to look the other way if he could get a trade off for having done so, someone could infiltrate the ZPD and not face the consequences for getting caught. In Tundratown, though, under Blakesley’s watch? He wouldn’t just put them on trial, he’d haul their name through the mud beforehand.

Blakesley loved stacking the evidence against someone so high and so thoroughly that people got put away without chances of parole, got the full sentence for every infraction, and then got raked across the coals in the papers afterwards. He didn’t need to make an official statement to the press, he just had to make the listed evidence available and let them draw their own conclusions. Blakesley was a big fan of public shaming as a means of extra punishment.

Which meant that, if the press ever wind of this, they’d immediately run stories on it. Lone wolf Blakesley with his death glare and unflappable demeanor and lifelong accolades, undone from the inside – it’d be great fodder for sensationalist news stories on the fall of the TTZPD.

So Malitsoh told Judy never to repeat the fact there was a leak to anyone outside of her partner and the chief, and then he sat back and massaged his temples with his claws, digging in deep enough to keep away the impending migraine. “Damn it. I screened the recruits so carefully – how did this happen?”

“Clearly,” Blakesley said, not looking up from his computer, “this person became radicalized after having joined the ZPD. Extremism is something that mammals can develop slowly, like a cancer. I don’t doubt that you and Ceren went over recruits’ files thoroughly. What bothers _me_ is that no one else noticed one of our own turning rotten.”

“I guess this would explain why we’ve had a hard time getting copies of your files uptown in Central. I thought it was the volume of work overwhelming your guys’ doing the paperwork – didn’t cross my mind that it might be sabotage.” _Frankly,_ Malitsoh thought, _if I were going to screw with police work, this would be the last district I’d want to try it in. The Biggs get word there’s a predator supremacist going around and the cops will be the least of their worries – that whole family has a zero tolerance policy for bigotry_ and _for people muscling in on their turf. God, imagine being stupid enough to cross the cops and the Mafia at the same time._

“Here,” Blakesley handed him a piece of paper, ink still drying, “take this to Bogo. Don’t leave a digital trail of any kind, don’t breathe a word of this and don’t let anyone in filing know you suspect anything. We’re keeping this close to the vest for now. Where’s Hopps? She’s late-”

Judy kicked in the door, paws full of coffee cups. “I’m here! And I got you coffee. Figured we all kind of needed it today.”

For a moment Malitsoh stared at her, unable to formulate a response, and then Blakesley’s normally stony face gave way to a charmed sort of half-smile, half-smirk as he chuckled and held out a paw for a coffee cup.

“Quyanavak, Hopps.”

Her ears perked up, nose twitching. “Ii’ii.” Judy bit her lower lip, looking up at him uncertainly. “That’s what people in Suluun say instead of ‘you’re welcome’, right? I really only ever knew one person from there, but I remember that from TV. We got all the local Suluun stations at my grandma’s house.”

Blakesley raised an eyebrow. “If you were anyone else, I’d think you were trying so hard because you wanted a promotion.” Judy’s ears dropped down with comical speed, and he snorted. “Don’t worry, I know that’s not what you’re doing – you earned your position through hard work, same as anyone else here. It’s just… nice, to see you giving this your all, from the coffee to coworker relations.”

“I’m here to make the world a better place,” she said with a shrug. Out of anyone else’s mouth Blakesley would’ve thought it was idealistic garbage or utterly fake, and out of his own mouth it’d be pure sarcasm, but when she said it, she said it like it was written in Scripture somewhere. “And making the world a better place sometimes involves little things just as much as big ones, right?”

 _Gods help me, she’s cute._ Blakesley hid a smile by taking a sip of still scorching coffee – how fast had she run down here? – and shrugging. “I suppose you’re right. Where’s Wilde?”

“Talking to other mammals who know about the Dyer family through reputation around the neighborhood,” she explained. “We’re trying to establish a timeframe for when the last time they saw Jonah Dyer was, because two mammals now have referenced very early Saturday morning when the last time Mrs. Dyer saw him was Friday night. If we can clock what time his last appearance in the building was, we can look through security footage and find a definite last time seen, along with a clear description of what he was wearing.”

The wolf and cy-wolf shared a look. It was Malitsoh who asked the obvious: “And people are actually talking? To a fox in a purely prey neighborhood?”

Judy beamed, sunny and bright, like a proud girlfriend. “Yup! Nick’s good at what he does. People like talking to him, and once he gets them going he knows how to direct the conversation.” She glanced up at them, perhaps abruptly remembering she was speaking to two predators. “Do… do people not talk to the two of you, down here? But you live here! That’s insane!”

They looked elsewhere. After a beat, Malitsoh slipped out the door to go deliver the paper to Bogo. _Coward,_ Blakesley thought, now trapped with Hopps’ horrified and pitying eyes in his own damn office. He hated pity more than anything else. Thankfully, most of what was in her expression was disgust at the state of the world – that, he could deal with. He sighed, tilting his good ear towards her to better pick up the soft, agitated thumping of her foot.

“There are some neighborhoods here people don’t want me to walk into, yes,” he answered, when it became clear she wasn’t going to go back to work until he said _something_. “I think they’d answer my questions in a professional capacity, but not as a stranger moving into their neighborhood.”

“But you’re just like anybody else here – you speak the same language, you like the same foods, you go to the same festivals. You’re actually more familiar with the High North than a lot of Zootopia-born mammals in Tundratown, since you lived there, so-”

“Hopps,” he said, equal parts charmed and exasperated, “life is not the simple little thing your Police Academy sociology class taught you it was. You can lay out all the rational reasons you want as to why I’m more like the prey of Tundratown than the predators and why I have a right to be here, but we don’t live in a rational world. We live in an emotional one, and then we rationalize our emotions into sounding reasonable later.” She opened his mouth to argue with him more, and gods bless her but he didn’t have the energy for this fight today, so he cut her off with, “Would _you_ trust someone moving in with their predator boyfriend?”

“I _had_ a predator boyfriend,” she countered, and his gaze snapped up from the paperwork to meet hers. “He was a bunny-bear, and I dug a burrow with him, _sir_ , so I would appreciate it if you didn’t act like it’s impossible for people to learn to see past whatever their parents taught them.”

He rarely found himself stunned speechless. That was rarer than his anger was, and foreign and unfamiliar. Blakesley was terrible at personal matters and interpersonal relationships, both himself and others, but he had a feeling he wouldn’t have been able to come up with a good reply to this even if he weren’t so bad with people. _How does a bunny-bear even happen?_ The thought churned his stomach. It was a vile thing, and he found himself glad he had a good enough poker face not to show it. _How did she meet – why would she date – what did her parents think – oh, wait. Wait._

“Hopps,” he told her, leaning over his desk, “never say those words again outside this office. If we’ve got a leak from within the force, then your sting operation with Wilde won’t be putting you in danger – attacking a cop looks bad, and it’s not a real relationship. But if word gets out about your prior relationship, well…”

“You think I’d be in danger.” Her ears curled back against the curve of her head, eyes wide. He could see the calculations she was running in her head. She opened her mouth to speak, rethought it, and shut her mouth, unable to verbalize the things running through her head. “…thank you, sir. I – I know you’re just trying to keep Nick and I safe. I’ll try not to mention it to anyone else.”

The cy-wolf sighed heavily, placing a paw atop hers on the desk, to get her to look at him. “I don’t _disapprove_. It’d be hypocritical, rationally speaking, but… on an emotional level, for whatever it’s worth, I agree with you. These things shouldn’t matter. And one day, they won’t, or at least they’ll matter less. But for now, you need to stay alive to see that day. Alright?”

She gave him a smile that, while small, was no less genuine for it. “Alright. Thanks, boss.”

She squeezed his paw with both of hers, and he wondered again how something as _unsettling_ and _unnatural_ as a bunny-bear could’ve happened, given the size difference was even greater there, but he held his tongue. Some debauched things had happened in the sticks when mammals were drunk. He wasn’t surprised, just repulsed. Yet, still, he found that the fondness in her eyes for the boy was still real and not something he wanted to tamper with. Who his fellow officers dated in high school was none of his damn business, anyway. Judy Hopps was a fine officer and a good person. Presumably she was capable of making the judgment calls herself as to who and what she wanted in her life.

Still, something nagged at him as he watched her leave, saw her whole demeanor brighten when Nick lit up her phone, ears perking right back up like their conversation had never happened. She looked like any young doe in a semi-serious relationship.

Just how fake _was_ their cover story, really?

He tried very hard not to think about it as he returned to his own work.

* * *

Nick buried his face into the pillows of his new bed and tried not to scream.

No one had warned him that, in lieu of dropping off food, _a lot_ of northern mammals wanted to invite him for food purely based on him being new to the neighborhood. His stomach didn’t just hurt, it _ached_ , in exactly the opposite way of how it had when he was a kit. The first year after his father died he’d gone from functionally poor to barely keeping a roof over his head, even with the hustling. He’d gone without breakfast every day for months until he learned to rig vending machines, split a single burger with his mother for dinner, and smooth talked people into giving him bits of their lunch. In summer, he’d almost starved outright.

Maybe it was his fault, in retrospect, that Finn ended up in a life of crime. Finn’s family was stable, or at least functional, but not enough to feed Nick and his mother on top of their own food bills. So Finn had let himself be talked into their first hustle, which led to another, which led to another… and Finn had never really stopped hustling.

He’d never been so full it hurt before. The concept was entirely foreign to him, almost unthinkable. Nick had the thought, suddenly, that this wouldn’t be a bad place to raise kits. _Mom’s always wanted grandkits. Maybe this is a sign. I hope not, though. I haven’t been decently warm since I got here._ He curled into a ball, paws on his stomach, trying to reconcile the niceness of everyone in the building with the fact Tundratown was home to some of the worst criminals in the city (outside of the Nocturnal District, which was a lost cause). Tundratown was not a unified front. There were prey neighborhoods and pred ones, kind people and criminals, immigrants and old blood, not too dissimilar to the rest of the city, but heightened, more blatant in its’ disparity. They had, so far, only had to operate in the nicer parts of town for this case.

That would change. His only leads on Lyla’s predator supremacist friends pointed to a bar, a piercing parlor, and the one and only Church of the Central People here.

Most mammals here were of the Arctic faith, but there were just enough non-Arctic mammals present to justify a Centralist building. There were a lot more – Nick checked the little notebook he’d scribbled the word in – _afaayyuvik_ (what was the plural? Nick needed to ask Judy how plurals worked here), the temples rabbits, mice, and beavers from the High North attended. Judy’s family was Centralist, like most of the Bunnyburrow population, and like most families, they’d really only attended for Solstice festivals, funerals and weddings. Nick’s experience was less than even that, more or less confined to his father’s funeral and some Winter Solstice celebrations when he was a kit.

Judy could investigate the bar, but bunnies had actual religious rules against getting tattoos or piercings, so Nick would have to investigate that solo. They could both go to the Church. _Unfortunately,_ Nick thought, wincing. He didn’t like talking to clergy of any faith, hated the way these supposedly enlightened mammals assumed the worst of him whenever he walked in the door. The only Centralist Church that didn’t make his fur stand on end was Finn’s, with its’ majority predator congregation and fox pastor, a compassionate woman who took the teachings of Saint Marian to heart.

Nick’s paw wandered to the medal of Saint Ruzha around his neck. His mother had always been a big fan of the patron saint of roses, widows and orphans. He’d never understood why. It didn’t ultimately matter, so long as it made her happy and kept her going. He hadn’t told his mother he was investigating a homicide. That was the kind of thing that would set her fur on end and keep her up at night, and she had enough problems sleeping as it was.

Not for the first time in his life, he found himself suddenly feeling an acute and profound sense of loneliness, and in the days before he’d met Judy it would’ve led to a long night spent at a bar trying to pick up vixens or pick their pockets.

“I’m home!” Judy announced, and he heard the distinct rustling of grocery bags. “I got everything we agreed on, plus some cranberry candy. It was on sale and I know you’re a berry fiend.”

“How dare you call me out like that in my own home,” he said as he hauled himself out of bed, stomach still aching.

Judy rolled her eyes, dithering a moment on where to put the groceries. The kitchen in her childhood home had been perfectly organized by her mother ages ago, and the mini-fridge she had in her current apartment wasn’t big enough to require much thought. A kitchenette was a new concept. Judy took the amaranth out of the bag and put it in the crisper drawer of the fridge while Nick lingered a few feet away, watching. She looked so domestic, so untroubled for a moment as she put away some mini-pies in their small boxes off to the side and placed a jug of cider in the fridge. For a just a second, things were calm, afternoon light casting a faint gold tinge over everything, Judy’s face in silhouette perfectly serene.

“Alright, Carrots. Let’s fix dinner and talk work.” He saw her shoulders slump and nodded. “Yeah, I know, I’d love it too if we could take the night off, but the way I see it, the sooner we compare notes and get everything written up to send over to Clawhauser, the sooner we can relax.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to relax until we get this killer caught.” She tugged at one ear absently, then looked around. “Where did you put the plates, again?”

“Here, let me help…”

It took them a few minutes to put together dinner, and in a bid to delay the inevitable, Judy turned on the radio, an old junker of a thing she’d picked up on a whim while walking back to the apartment. The antique nature of the thing made it sort of fit their cover as cash-strapped, but it worked perfectly well, and she twisted the dial until she found something that wasn’t talk radio. Nick relayed to her with great enthusiasm the non-case relevant parts of his talks with their neighbors, including the constant barrage of food, the nonstop advice on where to go to buy this that or the other thing, and the not terribly subtle suggestions from one neighbor that he needed language classes. Judy giggled at his commentary and made quick work of her food while Nick picked at his own, perhaps understandably given the day he’d had.

“Anything not work related happen on your end, Carrots?” he asked, and Judy finished chewing and swallowing before answering, ever the polite country bunny.

“I think I freaked Blakesley out, which I didn’t know was possible, so that was fun.” Her tone of voice hinted at suppressed irritation even as her smile turned amused. “For somebody from Suluun, he sure is easy to fluster.”

“Suluun’s the predator island, right?” Nick asked, thinking back to the various snippets of talk he’d overheard throughout the day. “Where all the Arctic preds live in harmony and nobody bats an eye at bear-wolves and cy-wolves and wolverines get elected governor without any problems.”

“More or less, yeah. But… well, I guess there’s still old fashioned strains of conservatism even on the island,” she mused, playing with her amaranth with her fork, “because when I mentioned my last boyfriend being a bunny-bear, I thought he was going to throw up.”

Nick raised both eyebrows at her. “I thought you said he was a friend?”

She kept her eyes on her plate. “Does it bother you?”

“That you dated a predator-prey hybrid, or that he exists?”

“Both.”

“Neither. I trust your judgment with men and I don’t really care whatever shenanigans his ancestors got up to, even if it’s not the sexiest mental image.” He shrugged, meeting Judy’s eyes as she looked up at him. “I’m not that kind of old-fashioned, sweetheart. Mammals can be with whoever they want so long as everyone’s an adult and everyone’s happy. It’s not hurting anyone.”

Her expression softened, taking on that same warmth they did whenever she got emotional and tried to hug him. Fortunately she refrained from doing so – Nick was _not_ good at hugs – and just smiled at him. “I’m glad you’re more open minded than Blakesley. Don’t get me wrong, I still respect the work he’s done down here, but it was really jarring to see someone who’s a hybrid himself act so scandalized.”

“Ugh. Congratulations, Carrots, you finally found a topic so awful it makes talking about work sound _appealing_.” He shook his head as she giggled. “I don’t know what to tell you. People are complicated. For whatever it’s worth, though, a lot of people here don’t seem upset I’m living with you or living here. Except one bunny down on the first floor who gave me three coats and a box of mittens because ‘you’re going to freeze to death! Southerners are too delicate for these kinds of places!’” Nick pitched his voice up to match the lady’s intonations. “So expect Mrs. Hazelnut to lecture you on how irresponsible it is to make me live here when she sees you.”

Judy laughed. “My mom’s been looking for thermal underwear in your size to send you ever since I told her we’re working in Tundratown for the foreseeable future. It’s a mom thing.”

He chuckled as he put away the dishes, giving Judy a break so she could sprawl out on the couch, having been on her feet all day. For someone who’d been walking around in Tundratown without shoes for hours, her back paws looked surprisingly unscathed, much more than Nick’s would have. He’d gotten boots for this venture and still the arches of his back paws ached from the cold. The memory of Judy rapidly tunneling under the chain link fence after throwing the carrot pen over it popped back into his mind. _She’s not kidding when she says her mom’s part of the family is from the High North. Only an Arctic hare could’ve managed to dig through that much snow that fast. I should’ve clocked it then and there._ Then again, at the time he’d been focused on other things, and chronically underestimating her as just some dumb country bunny. He hadn’t thought to look any deeper than what was right in front of him, and hadn’t even looked at that much very closely.

“Alright, let’s get down to business.” He sat on the arm of the couch, watching her nose twitch contemplatively. “What did you find out?”

“There’s a leak from inside the T-Town PD, Lyla wanted her brother gone, she doesn’t know she’s part bear, and Mr. Dyer is the most respected man in this part of town. His work advocating for miners is a large part of why his family managed to get an apartment here – no one would refuse to rent to somebody like that. What’d you dig up?”

“Jonah was planning to marry Mara. He asked around about jeweler’s who had a flexible payment plan. Nobody had any real conflicts with him, so we can rule out enemies from within the neighborhood. Lyla’s friends, though, that’s another story. They’re pred supremacists who hang out in a few key places but mostly keep to themselves. Nobody could give me more than a single name, because apparently her friends only come over once in a blue moon when everyone else is out of the apartment.”

“What name did you get?” Judy asked, fidgeting with her left ear again. Nick reached down and, on impulse, scratched at it; she blinked up at him in surprise but seemed pleased. “Thanks. That’s better.”

“No problem. The name’s Grant Oleander. A fox from the rough part of town,” he added, looking preemptively sick of the topic. "Guess I’ll be keeping an eye out for him when I go scope out one of the locations we’ve got on the docket to look into.”

“Please tell me that’s not a long list.” She glanced at his paw, and he belatedly removed it.

“Uluu’s Piercing Parlor, that same terrible dive of a bar we started this mess in, and the one Centralist Church here.” He nodded once as Judy buried her face into their newly purchased couch cushion. “Yeah, it’s not an ideal set of marks to hit. We’re only going to be able to work in tandem for one of ‘em – can’t risk anyone from the bar clocking a rabbit-fox set from the other night, and all that. But the good news is that Clawhauser’s already looking into Grant, and Rust is putting an ear to the ground about Lyla. If he gets any intel, he’ll hit us up.”

She twisted so her entire body was face-down on the couch, then let out a brief muffled scream into the pillow. When she removed it, she sat up and looked at her partner with some sheepishness, as if she’d only belatedly realized she didn’t usually do that in front of him. “Sorry. I just – I guess I thought homicide cases involved a lot more actively doing things and a lot less looking into places and then looking into more places based on that and then looking into other places based on _that_. We’re getting somewhere, but _so slowly_.”

“Carrots, we’ve been on this less than a week and we have a body, we uncovered a leak within the T-Town PD, we have an apartment and cover in place to let us look into things closer, we uncovered an unreported missing mammal _and_ an unregistered kit. That’s not moving slow.” He sat down on the couch properly now, sighing. “We’re doing everything we can.”

“…every day we don’t catch this murderer, other mammals are at risk. Even if it’s not a cold case gone hot, people are still in danger.” Judy’s ears tensed and then flopped, as if unable to properly convey her thoughts. “I just want everyone to be okay.”

He wasn’t great with knowing when to offer up hugs – probably because his best friend was Finn, and Finn hated being touched – but he knew a mammal in need of comfort when he saw one. Nick reached out and drew her into a loose hug, not really sure how hard to hug a much smaller creature like Judy. “Hey. _Hey_. It’ll be okay, Carrots. This guy doesn’t know we’re onto him, and we’re working together. That’s all we needed to take Bellweather down and that’ll all we’ll need here.”

She closed her eyes. Up close, he noticed for the first time how thick her eyelashes were, dark and soft-looking like portraits of Saint Marian. “I hope you’re right. I know Bogo put me on the case because he thinks my being bilingual is some big bonus, but I’m not really qualified for this, and I know it. I’m not good at talking to people and working conversations like you. I don’t know how to get leads or dig for info or any of that.”

“That’s stuff you can learn, Judy. And this isn’t all on you – no one’s asking you to crack the case by yourself, you know. Malitsoh, Clawhauser, Bogo, Blakesley, me, we’re all right here for you.” He rubbed her back, the way he used to do for his old girlfriend, once upon a time. Judy’s frame was smaller, and he found he had to slow his motions considerably. “Remember how you told me the sun froze over? What was her name…?”

“Malina,” she supplied, voice soft, head pressed to the place where his shoulder met his neck. “Malina Siqieiq.”

“Right. She froze solid. Then she kept going, right? She recovered from that, and we still have the sun. And if you can’t be the super-cop you always thought you’d be, single-handedly solving cases and saving the city, if you freeze, you’ll keep going, too.”

Judy mulled that over for a moment, then chuckled, a quiet little sound in the too-empty apartment. “You know, Malina dove into the sea for a wolf. Her friend. And when she froze after she brought him up to the surface, he thawed her by holding her close in his arms, for all of the polar midnight.”

“Sounds like one hell of a friend,” he noted, smiling at the mental image. “Must’ve really loved her.”

“I used to think I’d never have a friend like that. I tried to _be_ a friend like that, but I never thought it’d be a thing in my life. Then I met you.”

Abruptly, he found himself choked up, almost unable to speak. “Geez, Carrots, I… God, I don’t know what to say. Except it’s mutual. I’m with you to the end of the polar midnight.”

“…you really want to make a snarky comment right now, don’t you?” She pulled back, smiling, eyes shining with something uncomfortably close to love or tears or worse, maybe both. “It’s okay. We’ll still be having a moment even if you make a joke.”

“Finally, someone _gets_ me. Where have you been all my life?” He grinned, even as he let his arms fall to his side and let her out of the awkwardly proportioned hug.

She giggled. “Well, I wasn’t born for part of it.”

“And you thought _I_ was going to ruin the moment. That’s it, you’re sleeping on the couch.”

She only giggled harder at that, and he huffed, turning his head away, trying his best to look indignant and offended, without really succeeding.


	9. afalatabaa (directs, controls, influences)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Normal translation notes will be at the bottom of the chapter to avoid spoilers.
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: implied murder, description of dead bodies/desecration of corpses, amputation of a limb, bullying.
> 
> ALSO! Please note that this fic is sort of on hiatus as of now due to the coronavirus. More accurately, it's on hiatus because myself, my dad and my brother have tested positive for COVID-19 and I'm EXHAUSTED. I feel like trash and it took three days to write the last thousand words of this fanfic to get this chapter done and posted.
> 
> This fic is not cancelled. I'm too invested in it to cancel it. But I'm not promising updates any time soon, because I need to recover. Once I can keep food down and don't feel dead tired after being awake for three hours in a row, then I'll get back on it. Right now, you don't want to read anything I'd attempt to write in this state of mind.

Tattoo and piercing parlors were Nick’s least favorite places to try and pull a hustle.

There were a lot of reasons for that, but the largest and most problematic one was that it was hard to come up with a reason to be in one of these places that worked. A plausible cover was nearly impossible short of actually sitting down and getting something done, which was absolutely not an option. Not only had he promised his mother a long time ago that he would never get a piercing, he was also simply not willing to do it on principle. There was something about the idea of permanently modifying his body for the sake of a case that got right under his skin. It felt like an admission that this job owned him.

So that idea was shelved, at least temporarily, which left Nick and Judy with two places to investigate that they hadn’t yet gone to. And since the only one they could both attend was the Centralist Church, that was where they went.

Nick’s brain had long ago made a permanent connection between the concept of churches and his father’s funeral. That wasn’t a night he particularly wanted to remember – his grandmother crying so hard she made herself sick, his uncle visibly intoxicated, his mother so silent and still she might as well have been a statue save for the tears running down her face – and it had permanently made him uncomfortable with church buildings. He had nothing against religious mammals or any religion in particular, nor did he even know enough about any given one to have much of an opinion. Until he met Judy he hadn’t been aware rabbits even had multiple deities.

 _I should read up on that,_ he noted to himself as he and Judy took the bus to the church, along with dozens of other more faithful mammals. _I feel like a fox living with a rabbit should know that. It might not blow our cover for me not to know, but still, better safe than sorry._

The predators on the bus gave Judy more than a few sideways glances, which she met with a sunny smile. Her paw was firmly in Nick’s. Nick was the only red fox on the bus, but not the only fox, and certainly not the only canine; he got the feeling most of the predators were bound for the same destination, going off of everyone’s nicer-than-average clothing and large numbers. He had no idea what the dynamic would be once they got into the building. Finn’s church had a prey pianist, a capybara who played so beautifully Nick was surprised she wasn’t a professional musician. Judy, however, would be in attendance as his girlfriend.

“This would make my mom happy,” he noted to her quietly. “You’ve got me dressed nice, awake on time and going to church. Now all we need is a house and we’ll have fulfilled all her dreams.”

“We don’t make enough to buy a house here – or anywhere else in the city,” she added, thinking about it and doubtless running numbers in her head. “We might be able to rent one out in Sahara Square if we save up, but the real question is, would we want to?”

He shuddered. “No. You think my Uqallakan is bad, wait until you hear my Sohbat. It’s a train wreck from start to finish.”

“It can’t be that bad.”

“I tried to order a beer and ended up saying ‘my hovercraft is full of eels’.” He heard some snickers from mammals listening in on their conversation and couldn’t bring himself to be mad at them. “The only way I’d function there fulltime is if we told the neighbors I have aphasia.”

Judy put a paw to her mouth to muffle her laughter. “Okay, okay. Point taken.”

She looked nice, he noted with a pang of warm, fuzzy feelings he didn’t know what to do with. Her fur was freshly washed and silky, her navy blue trench coat the right mix of formal and casual for the occasion, the fleece-lined black boots her mother had sent her lending her an air of dressiness in a part of town where many mammals went without shoes in casual settings. Apparently some people were more comfortable that way. With Judy, it was a matter of practicality most of the time – she ran faster and made quicker, easier changes in direction with the majority of the pads of her feet having traction on the ground. Dressing up was a concession to the severity of the case, and he knew that, but the sight of her, lilac sweater bringing out the vibrancy of her violet eyes, her paw in his, dressed the way she might be if she really were his girlfriend-

 _No. Bad. Stop it,_ he chided himself. _If ever there wasn’t a time and a place for romance, mid-murder investigation at a church is definitely it._

That didn’t stop him from squeezing her paw as they departed, or giving her an encouraging smile as they went in.

* * *

A charitable person might’ve described the first murder as merciful.

Most of the dissection was done to satisfy a burning curiosity, that nagging little voice that whispered, _you know you want to see if anything’s different inside between her and a normal wolverine_. Mara had gone down fairly easily, too tired from a full day’s work to fight back, gagged on her own dinner and prevented from screaming. She had kicked of course, lashing out with back claws made useless by her work boots, clawed fiercely at the paws around her neck hard enough to leave indents in the Kevlar-enforced gloves. Mammals got a burst of strength in their final moments. Many a pair of seal-hide gloves had been ripped clean through over the years; oxygen deprivation and pure panic made dull claws a danger and sharp claws a knife.

Mara had never had sharp claws. Odd, for someone who was part bear. But then again, nothing in her body seemed noticeably different, at least not to the naked eye, from any other wolverine. Same organs, same layout of said organs, same teeth – the urge to take one out, pocket it and take it home to really go over it, was almost _debilitating_ , but that would be the kind of evidence trail that only a rookie would create. Homicide was a complicated thing, a crime it was difficult to get away with these days, and there was only so many liberties that could be taken with a body before it ended in jail time.

Admittedly that hadn’t stopped the old, cold case murders from being significantly more grisly. Organs had been removed and set aside while someone was still alive, bones broken to see what the breaking point was, skin and fur meticulously removed as the latest target screamed and cried. A lot of things existed that were worse than a simple murder, dissection and claw removal. Mara got off easy.

Still, the lack of claws was troubling. Incorrect, inconsistent with most other hybrids with predator ancestry, and that sense of wrongness demanded further investigation. So while most claws ended up in an incinerator – again, evidence trails were _not_ the goal, here – these particular claws were taken off with utmost care. Paw bones weren’t thick enough to require a bone saw. A knife and a substantial amount of pressure would do. Eventually, these, too, would have to go into an incinerator, preferably one of the ones the factories downtown used for trash, somewhere they’d be buried in more trash before anyone got so much as a glimpse of them, but for now, these were the only samples the world might ever have of wolverine-bear claws.

They deserved special examination, special care, until the day they had to be disposed of.

The next mammal to go down was worth even more specialized care, worth taking in for prolonged examination. Though there was always the chance, the desperate hope, of finding something anatomically interesting in a single session out on the streets, at the end of the day some things simply couldn’t be done without equipment. If it had been a matter of pure necessity and it had been back when the ZPD hadn’t yet found Mara, this woman might not have been killed at all, but, well. This was a mix of Rusty Spotted-Cat and Arctic Hare. There was no way another person of this combination existed outside of, possibly, her siblings.

Besides which, there _were_ practical reasons for this. She was on the verge of cracking under the pressure of being in the world of crime. A leak was unacceptable at this point in proceedings. It was bad enough to have the ZPD looking into Mara’s death, there was no need to make things messier by having someone break ranks and go to them with information.

Not that anyone within the organization knew who they were dealing with – not enough to point a finger, anyway. There were enough tall predators and people with past they wouldn’t divulge that it would’ve been a long and not particularly distinguished list.

And, to call a spade a spade, the Technician had slipped through their paws once before. The ZPD was not the stronghold of justice they thought they were. A bribe and a switch of districts had allowed for a clean getaway. That was definitely a repeatable course of action. It just wasn’t an _efficient_ one. Shaking off the ZPD again would take months, maybe years, with Bogo and Blakesley at the helms of their respective districts, and Tundratown was too perfect to walk away from. The freezing temperatures kept bodies from decaying at a normal rate, making pinpointing a time of death almost impossible. That meant a lot more room to create alibis. _There are three kinds of truth: that which you know is true, that which you can prove is true, and that which you can prove in court._ The Technician tilted an ear in thought, hidden away in the shadows of an alley, thirty minutes into a possible two hour wait. Once upon a time, Tundratown had been home to a lovely little vixen lawyer who’d offered up some off-the-books legal counsel and a more than adequate cover.

Not enthusiastically, of course. Never enthusiastically.

_(“Tell me you didn’t,” she had said, eyes wide with horror. It was rhetorical, said more like a prayer than a question. The look on her face wasn’t that of someone who could be tricked into unseeing what she’d seen. She was putting the dots together and it was already too late to reverse course._

_And despite all the snide remarks and cold clinical detachment, all the hours of rehearsal and contemplation put into the Technician persona, in the face of those devastated dark blue, desert night sky eyes, there was nothing to say. There was no fixing this. Death was a permanent thing._

_“…come on. We need to get you out of here.” She didn’t reach out a paw. The distance between them was already growing._

_Every action had a cost. No path existed without consequences._

_Unfortunately, it was far too late to turn back now.)_

The second murder of the month – the third of the year – was as impersonal as the first. There was nothing enjoyable about killing someone, no thrill to be gotten from doing something illegal or from the depths of the fight. It should have meant something, should have been horrifying or disgusting or enjoyable or beautiful in its’ own twisted way. It was merely an act. Violence was just another thing a person could do, like walking or eating or breathing.

The girl had sharp teeth and sharp claws and a lot of fight in her. She kicked hard and bit down deep enough to draw blood, front teeth piercing through the thick wool of the coat sleeve and lodging into skin. Her eyes went unfocused and her arms seized as oxygen deprivation set in and yet she kept kicking with her back legs, claws slicing at any available surface, body pitching forward to dig them in deeper. Which part of her was the fighter? The cat, cowardly until cornered and then unbreakable in spirit, or the hare, noble and family-driven and unwilling to die and leave her family just yet?

It didn’t matter. Size was everything. Once she was lifted off the ground, suspended by her neck and the paws tightening around her throat, it only took forty-nine seconds for her to fall unconscious. After that, it was a mere minute before she stopped breathing entirely.

Even in death, her eyes were open wide in permanent panic, absolute horror, and more than a hint of betrayal. The last thing she ever saw was one of her best friends. And she didn’t see any remorse there, either, because there wasn’t any there yet to be felt. That usually only kicked in at funerals, if at all.

That was as cruel a death as could be imagined, but, well. It was too late to turn back this time, too.

The body fit in the Technician’s messenger bag, eyes glassy already like a strange little doll.

No one noticed a thing on the walk home.

* * *

Judy had never been a huge fan of Centralist church services, but she thought this one was fairly decent.

“In the book of Shimol, it is written, ‘Let no one mistake us for the fruit of violence. Violence, having passed through the fruit, failed to spoil it.’ We live in hard times,” the priest said, voice low and steady, “and so do so many others in this city. We are subject to violence, not just of the physical kind but emotional, mental, spiritual. We are all enduring things each and every day that can seem heavy. But we are all endowed with the ability to choose. We can choose to be kind, to be gentle, to meet that violence with tenderness. No one can end all the evils in the world, but you can choose not to be part of the violence someone else suffers, and live a life that offers up shelter from the harshness of the world for your family, your friends, your community. We have not been spoiled by the world if we do not want to be. We can choose to be better than what we’ve been through. In these times of rising crimes and fear, it is all too easy to believe we have no control over the situation. But you do. Choose to be the kindness you’ve always wanted to receive.”

She could get behind that. Yes, the sermon was repetitive, and yes, it was a little heavy-pawed, but she agreed with the core message. Heck, it was part of why she’d become a police officer. She wanted to make the world a better place and fight against violence. Judy just hadn’t realized, until she met Nick, how much of that violence was directed at predators. The way that elephant had treated Nick in the ice cream parlor was unacceptable even knowing he had been running a hustle. The ‘compliment’ she gave him, calling him articulate, was also unacceptable. It was verbal violence.

Judy rested her paw over Nick’s, feeling a wave of mixed emotions wash over her. She loved him. She wanted him to be happy. _Love? Did I just think that? Love? Do I love him?_ The answer was instant. _Yes, yes I do. Is it_ that _kind of love, though?_ That, she didn’t know. Her romantic experiences extended to two boyfriends, one serious and one relatively light-hearted, not much more than a friendship with kisses. Judy wasn’t well-versed in where the line was between friend and police partner and person she wanted to be with all the time and romantic love.

If she were interested in a bunny, she could have talked to her mom about it. Bonnie had talked with almost all her children about matters of the heart at one point or another, guiding them through the rough spots and offering up encouragement and advice.

Bonnie still wouldn’t call Tuvrak Judy’s ex-boyfriend even now, years after the fact.

She couldn’t go to her mom. All she could do was hold onto Nick and try to figure things out on her own time.

Now was not the time for figuring out her love life, or possible lack thereof. Now was the time to get to the priest before he left the building, though thankfully he seemed to be the kind to linger around after the service and talk to people. He was an Arctic wolf, not a grey wolf from the High North but a true Arctic wolf with cream-tinted white fur thick enough to keep out the Tundratown chill in and of itself. He was smaller than the grey wolves of his congregation, yet no less well-muscled, moving with surprising speed and grace through the crowd. He seemed to know everyone, which boded well for Nick and Judy’s true purpose here. If anyone would know who they needed to look into or know about the unsavory actions of Tundratown’s predators, it was a predator respected by and in touch with most of the community.

Judy kept her paw in Nick’s as they stood up, giving him a small smile. “What do you think?”

“About the sermon, the congregation or the building? Because I would’ve thought a church in Tundratown would have less stained glass, just to cut down on the heating bill.”

“I like stained glass,” she said, crinkling her nose at him. “I got to see it being made one winter back in Avva Mamaixaq. It’s amazing.”

“You think _everything_ is amazing, Carrots,” Nick pointed out, rolling his eyes.

A voice from behind them interrupted their usual banter. “I wasn’t aware there were any stained glass factories in Avva Mamaixaq.”

It was the priest. Judy’s ears perked up as she turned to him. “It wasn’t in Avva Mamaixaq proper. It was in Igniq-Ivunibaruraq, in the town of Kannakatchi. My family took the ferry over there once.”

“Ah. I see. I never got to see much of the Upper Peninsula Islands myself, but I’ve heard it’s beautiful in summer.” He held out a paw, all smiles. “My name is Father Cornel Sibeik. It’s nice to meet you.”

Judy shook his paw quickly. “I’m Unaqai, and this is Piberius, my boyfriend.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Nick added, smiling and watching the priest closely for any hint of a negative reaction. The man’s eyes darted from Judy to Nick and back again, but he didn’t seem surprised or disapproving, simply nodding once. “We’re new in town. Well, in Tundratown, at least.”

“I see. Well, I’m glad you decided to come here – we’re a small congregation, but everyone here is very kind, and you’re more than welcome to come by my little office, such as it is, if you need anything. My door is always open.” His voice was warm, and Judy detected in it a hint of an accent, a softening of vowels and evenness of tone that reminded her, suddenly, of Tuvrak’s father.

_(“I don’t understand,” Judy gasped out, clutching the doorframe to stay upright. “I don’t understand, I thought he was okay. I thought things were supposed to be better now, he told me they were, I don’t – I don’t-”_

_“I think,” Tuvrak’s father said, with the same gentleness he might show his own children, “you should sit down, take a breath, and tell us everything. From the beginning.”)_

She swallowed, and looked at Nick to cover any fleeting expression that might’ve messed with their cover. They needed to be alone with Father Cornel before they dropped cover or pulled a badge, with so many possible suspects in the building. When looking for predator supremacists, words around all predators had to be chosen carefully, and they both needed to act like a normal couple.

 _A normal predator-prey couple_ , she noted internally, _feels like an oxymoron._

“Actually,” Nick said, putting a paw on Judy’s shoulder like a supportive boyfriend, “we’d like to talk to you in private, if that’s alright.”

“Certainly. My office is right over-”

“Cory!” a voice boomed out, and people turned to stare as a frantic fox – no, not a fox, he was far too tall for that – made his way through the crowd, dodging around people and slipping through with remarkable grace and agility. His voice was cultured, that Mid-Atlantic accent Judy was used to hearing from professors and news anchors, but his fur was ruffled wildly, as if he hadn’t bothered to comb it before leaving the house. “Cory, thank God, I caught you. I need to talk to you, right now. I – it’s – something’s happened.”

Cornel’s ears perked up, tilting forward as he gave his friend his full attention. “Of course, Qixaun. Give me just a few minutes to finish talking with these two, and then-”

“No,” Qixaun interrupted, drawing himself up to his full height – and he was _tall_ when he did so, taller than the Arctic wolf he was speaking to, legs long and slender under his dark green peacoat, accenting in their thinness the lack of a tail, “You don’t understand, we need to talk _now_. It’s urgent.”

“Tate,” Cornel half-murmured, leaning in and speaking lowly enough Judy had to strain to hear him, “what could _possibly_ be so urgent you decided to barge into _my_ church and yell at me like this?”

“ _Tuqutkaarraujuq._ ” It was just above a whisper. Judy’s ears flickered, and she had to fight to keep them from drooping and giving away that she’d heard.

Cornel’s whole demeanor changed in an instant. He placed a paw on his friend’s shoulder for a moment, a brief and unreadable gesture, before turning to Nick and Judy. “I’m sorry. A family emergency has come up – we’ll talk later. Perhaps tomorrow? Come by after morning services, I’ll have time then.”

“Of course.” She forced a smile, then held it as she looked at the not-quite-fox. _Tate Qixaun. I’ll run the name when we get back to the station._ “I hope everything works out okay.”

Tate’s smile didn’t remotely reach his eyes, which were a purple-red that reminded Judy of wine. It was a color more at home in wolf eyes than fox. “I hope so, too.” He nodded his head towards them, politely. “Good day and _uqqitchulaangatuq_.”

“ _Uqqitchulaangatuq._ ” She nodded at him, and by some miracle managed to wait until the two figures retreated out of sight to whirl around to face Nick. “We need to go back to HQ, immediately.”

“What? Carrots, we were going to stay and mingle, remember? Hang out at the luncheon thing, ask some questions, make some contacts?” He paused, taking in the severity of her expression. “What is it?” he asked, leaning down to whisper to her. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you hear what he said? Tate, I mean.” She wasn’t surprised when he shook his head. Bunny ears were better than fox ears, nine times out of ten. “I can’t place his dialect, but he said _tuqutkarraujuq_. Tuqutkaa. That’s an old word, but it means kill. Juq. Meaning, someone did.”

His fur stood on end, but he kept his voice quiet. “And the rrau part?”

“I have no idea. That’s the part that’s not normal, but if it’s Sulun dialect, then Blakesley can figure it out. We need to get back, right now. We have a name to run and – why are you looking at me like that?”

“Carrots, we can’t give off the impression we understood what we just heard or that we’re freaking out. I’ll stay, and tell people you got called into work suddenly. I’ll schmooze, get some info, see what people here know about that guy. With any luck, I might get to see him after he gets out of Cornel’s office, see if I can get a read on him.” He blinked at her as she wrapped her arms around him. “Why are you looking at _me_ like that?”

“You’re such a sly fox sometimes.” She nuzzled into his neck, looking relieved he’d tempered some of her impulsiveness with his quick planning. “Okay. I’ll text you when I’ve gotten things sorted out at work, and then we’ll meet up after that. Alright?”

“Alright.” He touched the base of her ear gently, once, out of some strange impulse he couldn’t place. “I’ll save you some carrot cake if they have any.”

“Thanks. You’re the best.” She shot him a grin as she left, doing her best not to run while in the sanctuary proper.

Nick watched her go, maybe a moment longer than was strictly necessary to maintain his cover. The smile on his face slipped away as he really processed the weight of what she’d overheard. _Someone killed someone. Didn’t say ‘I killed’, so I guess there’s that, but it’s not as if he couldn’t be hiding the truth by picking his words just right. Damnit. I’m not a language nerd enough to work this out._ He made his way towards the reception hall, where the smells of good food were already wafting out and the hustle and bustle of plates being filled and chatter being held quickly put his nerves at ease. _I didn’t make the force because I’m a language nerd, though. I made it because, as my Intro to Criminal Law teacher said, I’ve got a knack for getting people to talk and hearing the things people don’t say._

 _Alright. Into the fray. I can hustle a church crowd. Ugh, I can’t believe I just thought that – God, if you’re up there, buddy, I hope you know I’m not enjoying this. I’m only doing this because I have to._ Still, he eyed the statuettes of Saint Marian, Saint Francis, and Saint Kreine van der Waal. _Kreine used to be a thief. She’d have my back on this._

 _…maned wolf saint in Tundratown. Odd choice of statuette._ It jogged something in his brain, putting a puzzle piece in place: _that guy wasn’t a fox. He was a maned wolf. Shit._ As little as Nick knew about Uqallakan and as bad as his Sohbat was, he wasn’t even sure what the maned wolf language was called – Gapirish? Gapirmoq? Gaplashmoq? He had a vague recollection of a maned wolf teacher, his Biology teacher in middle school, but she’d been the kind of bubbly and quirky woman who kept the class laughing and engaged with games and competitive quizzes. He’d never glimpsed any of the life she lived outside the classroom, only heard her speak in her native tongue once on the phone to her husband.

So he was flying blind, and that wasn’t great, but Tate Qaixaun spoke fluent Uqallakan and Nick was willing to bet that surname was Arctic, too. _I can work with that._ He took a deep breath, straightened his tie and made his way into the reception hall, trying his damnedest to look casual.

This wasn’t his usual crowd, but that hadn’t ever stopped him before, and it wasn’t going to stop him now.

* * *

Nick had learned a thing or two in his time about how people worked.

There were always groups and subgroups, divisions and sides, popular opinions and people who were viewed highly in their own circles. He hadn’t learned most of that in high school like most mammals. His father was a mechanic as a day job, but he’d also sold homebrew alcohol of several varieties as a side hustle. Nick could still remember the way his father had worked his way into people’s good graces. He was attentive, recalled details, tailored his compliments and comments to what people wanted to hear and what they were insecure about. People loved him, this kind and considerate guy who looked at everyone around him with respect and admiration. His ability to see the best in everything and find a nice thing to say about everyone let him slip in questions people might not have normally answered with remarkable ease.

Nick would never be as good at it as his father was, because his father had genuinely believed some of his own hustle. He’d been an optimist to his core. Nick wasn’t. He was getting better at not being jaded or cynical, but he wasn’t the starry-eyed soft-hearted fox his father had been. Still, he couldn’t help but think his father would appreciate Nick using his hustling skills to solve a murder and stop innocent predators from being killed.

_Dad always said people wanted to help one another, they just didn’t know how. Well, let’s give the mammals here a chance to help me out._

Nick’s first instinct was to gravitate towards the nearest fox, and thankfully, there was one in the room. She was an Arctic fox, with narrow almond-shaped eyes and a long tail, the kind of classic beauty that once upon a time would’ve left him tongue-tied.

“So, uh, what’s good, here?” he gestured to the buffet line up with a sort of obvious confusion. “If this is anything like the last church I went to, there’s always one thing everyone loves and one thing to avoid.”

“Avoid the blueberry pie,” she said, immediately and without hesitation. “And I hate to tell you this, but the butterscotch pie, which is the one thing everybody here loves, is already gone. You missed it.”

“In the last minute and a half?” he raised his eyebrows, mildly impressed despite himself. “Well, lesson learned for next time, I suppose.”

“Oh, are you new here?” she asked, because it was polite. Nick personally hated those kind of polite unnecessary questions, given it was obvious that he was new – he was the only non-Arctic fox in the room. “I thought you might be. It’s not often that a rabbit comes in here.”

“She’s my girlfriend,” Nick said casually, shrugging as he put a little huckleberry cobbler onto his plate – if it was good enough for her, it was good enough for him. “We just moved here. And so far I haven’t embarrassed myself too badly trying to speak Uqallakan, so it’s going well.”

The Arctic fox gave him an encouraging look. “Give it time. You’ll pick it up, Mr…?”

“Please, just call me Piberius. I’ve never really thought churches were places to be formal with each other, you know?” He could tell he’d hit gold with that, from the way she smiled and her tail swished just once. _Got her._

“Oh, I agree completely – we shouldn’t be all formal here, we’re all sort of out of place as it is. My name is Rose, and this-” she flagged down a friend of hers, an excessively fluffy grey wolf, “is Tucker. Tucker, this is Piberius.”

A lot of times, all that was needed to get into a group was to be the pet project of someone else. Rose was the kind of person who needed almost no reason at all to treat someone as the newbie she would play mentor to. Some people liked playing the role of teacher. It was a social butterfly quality that Nick had never possessed or particularly liked in people, but it was useful. Within a few minutes he’d been introduced to half a dozen mammals and been given the names of a dozen people, usually accompanied with a descriptor. “That’s Jeff Vukenthal, he’s the manager of that hotel on Elm Street, the one with the fountains out front.” “That’s April Dobrowski, she teaches the kids’ classes. She’s a teacher for her day job, too. It really is her thing.” “That’s Mike. No one can say his last name, including you. He’s a government translator; really smart, really boring.”

On and on it went, with Nick asking questions in a quieter, softer rendition of his usual voice and keeping his tail curled around his own leg like a shy high school kid. The people around him seemed to eat it up. Church community types who were invested in their circle of friends, the lives of other people around them, and, of course, that sweet juicy gossip. As per everyone Nick had ever known, the people claiming not to be interested in gossip clearly were. The people who were legitimately uninvested in that sort of thing tended to stick to their own little corners. Nick hadn’t had to work entirely new sources for a while now, courtesy of having gone straight, but it came back to him easily. Look new, ask carefully-phrased questions, and look at every person he talked to like they were experts he was eager to learn from, and boom. Information overload.

There was no tactful way to ask about predator supremacists, and frankly, this cover was too fragile to blow out attempting that. Instead, he waited until he was halfway done with his lunch to ask, “So who was that guy who rushed in at the end of the service? He seemed really upset. I hope he’s okay.”

It was the right mix of confusion and good will to get an answer. Nathan, the jaguar opposite Nick, who spent most of the time huddled in layers and hadn’t removed his coat even when standing right by the heater, leaned forward to say something, paused, then glanced around almost nervously. “That’s Tate. Strange man, longtime friend of Cornel’s, keeps to himself. I see him at the bookstore all the time. He teaches Literature and runs the Drama Club at one of the high schools.”

Nick blinked, tilting his head in an appropriate amount of confusion. “Oh? So is that how he and Cornel know each other – they’re both big readers?”

“Well, that’s probably part of it,” Nathan said, glancing at the still-shut office door the maned wolf and Arctic wolf had retreated into. “But they go way back, so who knows? They’ve been buddies since middle school. And Cornel’s godfather to Tate’s children.”

“Wow. They must be really close, then. No wonder Cornel dropped everything to talk to him. I have a best friend I’d do the same for,” Nick noted, although privately he’d long ago vowed never to tell Finnick something that sappy for as long as they both lived. It was too mushy. Foxes were bad at feelings.

“Yeah,” Rose said, ears tilting and turning towards the shut door despite her attempts not to look interested, “I don’t think Tate’s very religious, though, and his children certainly aren’t. They only come here when he drags them in. Usually he just comes to talk to Cornel and say hi to a few people, you know, socialize a little bit before he goes back to his books.”

Adrian, a coyote who seemed to have a funny story about everyone, chimed in with a correction. “Tate wasn’t always like that, though. When I was a kit and he was a student teacher, he was a very different mammal. He used to be a pretty outgoing guy, before his wife…” he trailed off, looking at Nick as if suddenly remembering he was there.

Nathan had no trouble saying the quiet part out loud, though. “Before his wife was murdered, you mean.” Both Adrian and Rose looked intensely uncomfortable, but the jaguar simply looked at Nick and continued, “Tate’s wife was the last mammal the Torture Technician killed. After that Tate sort of lost it. Drank a lot, spent a lot of time in the church, talked about giving Cornel custody of his kids, but eventually Cornel got him sober again and things sort of repaired themselves from there.”

“He’s been through a lot,” Rose said softly, ears drooping. “You noticed he doesn’t have a tail? That’s because some wolves, when he was a kit – well, I don’t know the details, but they either sawed it off or tried to, and there was so much damage the doctors had to amputate.”

 _Which would be great motive to become an angry serial killer, if he wasn’t here telling Cornel about a murder. Every time I think this case can’t get more complicated…_ Nick winced and rubbed at his temple, feeling a headache coming on. He tried very hard not to think of his own childhood trauma, because going there would only end in nausea and nightmares. _It’s in the past. It doesn’t matter. And even if it did matter, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as what Tate went through._

“I’m amazed he didn’t die from blood loss,” he muttered, genuinely uncomfortable at the mental image his mind helpfully supplied of a tiny kit in a pool of blood.

“Cornel found him,” Adrian informed him, voice low as he nursed a cup of tea. “I think that’s why Tate always calls on him when things get rough. Near-death experiences bond mammals for life.”

 _That explains a thing or two about Judy and I_ , he thought, reflecting briefly on the Nighthowlers debacle. “Any idea what he rushed in about today? I’d hope life would be a little bit kinder to a guy who’s been through all that.”

“I don’t know,” Rose said. Nick was good at reading people, and he got a feeling she was telling the truth. “I hope it’s nothing serious, though.”

_Tuqutkaa. Kill. Juq. Someone did…_

“Yeah,” Nick said, not meeting her eyes. “Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tuqutkaarraujuq. Tuqutkaa + rrau + juq. In all dialects of Inuktitut, you'd insert something after tuqutkaa to indicate how long ago it happened - it's hard to explain coherently (not helped by me being sick right now) but -rataaq- indicates something happened within the last hour and -qqau- indicates something happened earlier today in South Qikiqtaaluk dialect, which is what I'm mostly using the grammar of even though I'm using the vocabulary of Inupiaq dialect (the grammar rules for the Inuktitut dialects are easier, sue me). This is the one place where all the dialects diverge, though: it's not just -rataaq-, -qqau-, -lauq-, it's a wide swath of interjections that vary from region to region. -rrau- is Inuktun (Northwestern Greenlandic) dialect only, and means, more or less, something that happened in the past six hours. (And no, Tate is not responsible for either of the murders described so far in this fic. If you're saying 'I did' something, it ends in -junga. 'I killed someone in the past six hours' would be tuqutkaarraujunga. Different word entirely. It's not the kind of thing Judy might've misheard - Nick, yes, but Judy's got a keen ear for languages.)
> 
> Also also, tuqutkaa is a really archaic form of the word for kill. I couldn't find usages after the 1800's (even the 1864 Inupiaq-English dictionary I have (it's a reprint obviously) lists other words as being more common), other than some outdated translations of the Bible. So that was a nice touch. Unfortunately for Tate, Judy learned from her grandparents, who are old people and thus knew the word and passed it on.
> 
> For the record, this is not the line that took a long time to write. The rest of the chapter was the part that took forever to write, because in my literally feverish state I'm having problems figuring out if what I wrote sounds natural or in-character. I had to read some chunks of this out loud and rewrite it, and I'm still not 100% sure this is up to the quality of other chapters.


End file.
